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diff --git a/34358.txt b/34358.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..40a2f88 --- /dev/null +++ b/34358.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3748 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Iolanthe's Wedding, by Hermann Sudermann + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Iolanthe's Wedding + +Author: Hermann Sudermann + +Translator: Adele S. Seltzer + +Release Date: November 18, 2010 [EBook #34358] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IOLANTHE'S WEDDING *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by Google Books + + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + 1. Page source: + http://books.google.com/books?id=TWcqAAAAYAAJ&dq + + 2. This volume include four short-stories: Iolanthe's Wedding; +The Woman Who Was His Friend; The New Year's Eve Confession; and +The Gooseherd. + + + + + + IOLANTHE'S WEDDING + + BY HERMANN SUDERMANN + + AUTHOR OF "THE SONG OF SONGS" + + + + TRANSLATED BY ADELE S. SELTZER + + + + + + NEW YORK + BONI AND LIVERIGHT + 1918 + + + + + + Copyright, 1918, + By BONI & LIVERIGHT, Inc. + + + + + CONTENTS + + + Iolanthe's Wedding + + The Woman Who Was His Friend + + The New Year's Eve Confession + + The Gooseherd + + + + + + IOLANTHE'S WEDDING + + + + + IOLANTHE'S WEDDING + + + + + CHAPTER I + + +I tell _you_, gentlemen, it's a rotten piece of business to be standing +beside an old friend's open grave-simply disgusting. + +You stand with your feet planted in the upturned earth, and twirl your +moustache and look stupid, while you feel like crying the soul out of +your body. + +He was dead--there was no use wishing he weren't. + +In him was lost the greatest genius for concocting and mixing punches, +cocktails, grogs, cobblers--every sort of drink. I tell you, gentlemen, +when you went walking in the country with him and he began to draw the +air in through his nose in his peculiar fashion, you might be sure he +had just conceived a new idea for a punch. From the mere smell of a +weed he knew the sorts of wine that had to be poured over it to bring +into being a something extra fine, a something that had never before +existed. + +All in all he was a good fellow, and in the many years we sat opposite +each other, evening after evening, when he came to me at Ilgenstein, or +I rode over to him at Doebeln, the time never dragged. + +If only it hadn't been for his eternal marriage schemes. That was his +weak side. I mean as far as I was concerned. As for himself--"Good +Lord," he'd say, "I'm just waiting for that vile water to creep up to +my heart, then I'll slide off into the next world." + +And now it had come to that. He had slid off. He lay there in his black +coffin, and I felt like tapping on the lid and saying: + +"Puetz, don't play this dirty trick on me. Come out. Why, what's going +to become of our piquet to-day?" + +Nothing to laugh at, gentlemen. Habit is the most violent of all +passions, and the number of persons that are ruined every year by +having their habits interfered with are never sung in song or epic, to +quote my old friend Uhland. + +Such weather! I wouldn't send a dog out in such weather. It rained and +hailed and blew all at the same time. Some of the gentlemen wore +mackintoshes, and the water ran down the folds in rivulets. And it +ran down their cheeks and into their beards--perhaps a few tears, +too--because he left no enemies behind. Not he. + +There was only one chief mourner--what the world calls chief +mourner--his son, a dragoon of the Guards in Berlin. Lothar was his +name. He had come from Berlin on the day of his father's death, and he +behaved like a good son, kissed his father's hands, cried a good deal, +thanked me gratefully, and did a dreadful lot of ordering around--a +lieutenant, you know--when all of a sudden--well, I was there--and we +had arranged everything. + +As I looked out of the corner of my eyes at the handsome fellow +standing there manfully choking down his tears, I thought of what my +old friend had said to me the day before he died. + +"Hanckel," he had said, "take pity on me in my grave. Don't forsake my +boy." + +As I said, that is what occurred to me, and when the pastor beckoned to +me to come throw the three handfuls of earth in the grave, I silently +sent a vow along with them, "I will not forsake him, old fellow, Amen." + +Everything comes to an end. The gravediggers had made a sort of mound +of the mud, and laid the wreaths on top, since there were no women at +the funeral. The neighbours took leave, and the only ones that remained +were the pastor, Lothar and myself. + +The boy stood like a block of stone, staring at the mound as if to dig +it up again with his eyes, and the wind blew the collar of his riding +coat about his ears. + +The pastor tapped him gently on his shoulder and said: + +"Baron, will you allow an old man one word more----" + +But I beckoned to him to step aside. + +"Just go home, little minister," I said, "and get your wife to give you +a glass of good hot punch. I fancy it's a bit draughty in that silk +vestment of yours." + +"Hee, hee!" he said, and grinned slily. "It looks as if it were, but I +wear my overcoat underneath." + +"Never mind," I said. "Go home. I'll look out for the boy. I know +better than you where the shoes pinches _him_." + +So then he left us alone. + +"Well, my boy," I said, "you can't bring him back to life again. Come +home, and if you want, I'll sleep at your house to-night." + +"Never mind, uncle," he said. That's what he called me because they had +once nicknamed me uncle in a joke. His face was hard and sullen, as if +to say, "Why do you bother me in my grief?" + +"But maybe we can talk over business?" I asked. + +He had nothing to say to that. You know what an empty house is like +after a funeral, gentlemen. When you come back from the cemetery, the +smell of the coffin still clings, and the smell of fading flowers. + +Ghastly! + +My sister, to be sure, who kept house for me then--the dear good soul +has been dead, too, these many years--had had things put into some sort +of order, the bier removed, and so on. But not much could be done in +such a hurry. + +I gave orders for her to be driven home, fetched a bottle of Puetz's +best port, and sat down opposite Lothar, who had taken a place on the +sofa and was poking at the sole of his shoe with the point of his +sword. + +As I said, he was a superb fellow, tall, stalwart, just what a dragoon +should be--thick moustache, heavy eyebrows, and eyes like two wheels of +fire. A fine head, but his forehead a bit wild and low, because his +hair grew down on it. But that sort of thing suits young people. He had +the dash characteristic of the Guards, to which we all once so ardently +aspired. Neither the Tilsit nor the Allenstein Dragoons could come up +to it. The devil knows what the secret of it is. + +We clinked glasses--to my old friend's memory, of course--and I asked +him: + +"Well, what next?" + +"Do _I_ know?" he muttered between his teeth, and glared at me +desperately with his burning eyes. + +So that was the state of affairs. + +My old friend's circumstances had never been brilliant. Added to that +his love for everything in the shape of drink. Well--and you know where +there's a swamp, the frogs will jump in--especially the boy, who had +been going it for years, as if the stones at Doebeln were nuggets of +gold. + +"The debts are mounting?" I asked. + +"Sky high, uncle," he said. + +"Pretty bad juncture for you," I said. "Mortgages, first, second, +third--way over the value of the property, and a lot of rebuilding +required, and there's nothing to be earned from farming on the estate. +The very chickens know that." + +"Then good--bye to the army?" he asked, and looked me full in the face, +as if expecting to hear sentence pronounced by the judge of a court +martial. + +"Unless you have a friend to pull you out of the hole." + +He shook his head, fuming. + +"Then, of course." + +"And suppose I should have Doebeln cut up into lots, what do you think +I'd realise?" + +"Shame on you, boy," I said. "What! Sell the shirt from off your back, +chop your bed into kindlings?" + +"Uncle," he replied, "you are talking through your hat. I am dead +broke." + +"How much is it?" I asked. + +He mentioned a sum. I'll not tell what it was because I paid it. + +I laid down my terms. Firstly, immediate withdrawal from the army. +Secondly, his personal management of the estate. Thirdly, the +settlement of the lawsuit. + +This lawsuit was against Krakow of Krakowitz, and had been going on for +years. It had been my old friend's favourite sport. Like all such +things, it turned, of course, upon a question of inheritance, and had +swallowed up three times as much as the whole business was worth. + +Krakow was a boor, so the dispute took on a personal colour, and led to +intense hate, at least on Krakow's side, because Puetz was phlegmatic +and always took a slightly humorous view of the affair. But Krakow had +openly declared and sworn that if any member or servant of the Puetz +family set foot on his place, he would sick his dogs on him. + +Well, those were my terms. And the boy agreed to them. Whether +willingly or unwillingly, I did not enquire. + +I made up my mind to take the first steps myself toward an +understanding with Krakow, although I had every reason to believe his +threat applied to me, too. I had had several tilts with him in the +county council. + +But I--look at me--I don't mean to boast--I can fell a bull with this +fist of mine. So a few curs don't need to make me take to my heels. + +Well, then. + + + + + CHAPTER II + + +So I let three days pass, gentlemen, to sleep on the matter--then my +two coach-horses into the harness--my yellow trap--and heigho for +Krakowitz. Beautiful bit of property, no denying that. Somewhat run +down, but full of possibilities. Lots of black fallow--might do for +winter kale or something of the sort. The wheat so-so. The cattle +splendid. + +The courtyard! Well, you know, a courtyard is like the human heart. +Once you have learned to see into it, you cannot be bamboozled so +easily. There are neglected hearts, but you can see gold nuggets +peeping out through the dirt. Then there are hearts all done up and +polished and smartened, hearts fed up, you might say, on arsenic. They +glitter and glisten, and all you can say when you look at them is "By +Jingo!" Yet they are rotten and mouldy. There are hearts in the +ascending and descending scale, hearts of which the better is more +hopeless than the much, much worse, because the worse improves while +the other gradually declines. Well, and so on. + +The Krakowitz yard was a little of all this. Bright, clean barns, +miserable wagons, fine drains for the stables, but the stalls badly +placed. An air of whimsicality about the whole place, with a touch of +stinginess or lack of means. From appearances it is difficult to +distinguish between the two. The manor-house--two stories, red brick +faced with yellow stones and overgrown with ivy. In a word, not bad, +something unstudied about it--well, you know what I mean. + +"Is the Baron at home?" + +"Yes. What name shall I give?" + +"Hanckel, Baron Hanckel--Ilgenstein." + +"Step in, sir." + +So I walked in--everything old--old furniture, old +pictures--worm-eaten, but cosy. + +I heard some one begin to curse and swear in the adjoining room. + +"The dirty blackguard--the impudence of him--always _was_ a friend of +that Puetz, the cur!" + +"Pleasant reception," I thought. + +Women's voices joined in. + +"Papa, papa!" + +"Good Lord! All right! All right!" + +Then he came in--gentlemen, if I hadn't just heard it with my own +ears!--holding out his hands, his old sinner's face beaming, his dachs +eyes blinking slily, but with a beam of pleasure in them. + +"My dear sir, delighted." + +"See here, Krakow," I said, "look out. I heard every word just now." + +"What did you hear, what did you hear?" + +"The epithets you bestowed on me--dirty blackguard and heaven knows +what else." + +"Oh that," he said, without a twitch of his lids. "I tell my wife every +day that the doors are no good. But, my dear sir, you mustn't mind what +I said. I always _have_ been angry that you stood by Puetz. And I tell +you, sir, my womenfolk mix just as good punches as he. If you had come +to us--Iolanthe!--Iolanthe's my daughter. Iolanthe!! The comfort of my +soul! Doesn't hear, doesn't hear. Didn't I just say the doors are no +good? But both those women are at the keyhole now! Will you get away +from there, you hussies? Do you hear their skirts rustling? They're +running away. Ha--ha! Those women!" + +Gentlemen, who could take offence? I couldn't. Perhaps I'm too +thick--skinned? But I couldn't. + +What did he look like? + +The creature didn't reach much above my waist-line. Round, fat, +bow-legged. But that absurd body of his was topped by a regular +apostle's head, either St. Peter's or perhaps St. Andrew's, or +somebody's of the sort. A fine, round, broad beard, with a band of +white running down from each corner of his mouth, yellow parchment +skin, thick crows' feet at the corners of his eyes, the top of his head +bald, but two huge grey bushes over his ears. + +The fellow danced about me like wild. + +Don't for a moment suppose, gentlemen, that I was taken in by his +goings-on. I had known him long enough. I saw through and through him. +But--call me a simpleton if you will--I couldn't help it--I liked him. +And I liked his surroundings. + +There was a little corner at the window with carved oak cabinets all +around--the window overgrown with ivy--very cosy. The sun shone in +bright and clear as in an arbour, and on the table in an ivory bowl was +a ball of worsted, and a copy of _Daheim_, and a piece of nibbled cake. + +As I said, altogether comfortable and cosy. + +We sat down in the corner, and a maid brought cigars. + +The cigars were no good, but the smoke curled so merrily in the +sunshine that I did not pay much attention to their burning away like +matches. + +I wanted to begin to talk about my business, but Krakow laid his hand +on my shoulder and said: + +"After the coffee!" + +"If you please, Krakow," I said. + +"After the coffee!" + +I courteously enquired about his farming and pretended great interest +in his innovations, about which he boasted extravagantly, though they +were as old as the hills to me. + +Then the Baroness came in. + +A fine old piece. A slender dame. Long narrow blue eyes, silver hair +under a black lace cap, a melancholy smile, fine yellow hands. A bit +too dainty for a country gentlewoman, and especially for such a boor of +a husband. + +She welcomed me with great propriety--while the old man kept screaming +as if possessed. + +"Iolanthe--girl--where are you hiding? A bachelor's here--a +suitor--a----" + +"Krakow!" I said, completely taken aback. "Don't joke that way about an +old blade like me." + +And the Baroness saved me by saying very neatly: + +"Don't worry, Baron. We mothers gave you up as hopeless years ago." + +"But the girl can come in at any rate," screamed the old fellow. + +And finally she came. + +Gentlemen, take off your hats! I stood there as if somebody had knocked +me on the head. A thoroughbred, gentlemen, a thoroughbred! A figure +like a young queen's, her hair loose, in a thousand wavelets and +ringlets, golden brown, like the mane of a Barbary steed. Her throat +full, white and voluptuous. Her bosom not too high, and broad and +curving at the sides. In a horse, we call it a lion's chest. And when +she breathed, her whole body seemed to breathe along with her lungs, so +strongly did the air pulsate through that glorious young body. + +Gentlemen, you don't have to go in for breeding animals as a passionate +pursuit to know how much toil and effort it costs to produce a perfect +specimen, no matter of what species. And I'm not a woman connoisseur, +and one doesn't have to be, to fold one's hands at the sight of so +perfect a creature and pray, "O Lord, I thank Thee for allowing such a +thing to walk the earth. For as long as such bodies are created we need +have no fear for our souls." + +The one thing I did not quite like at first was her eyes. Too pale a +blue, too languishing for such an abundance of life. They seemed to be +soaring towards heaven, and yet, when they narrowed, a searching, +lowering look came into them, the sort of look surly dogs get from +being beaten too often. + +Old Krakow caught her by both shoulders and began to brag outrageously. + +"This is _my_ work--this is what I brought into being--I'm the father +of this," and so on. + +She tried to shake him off and turned scarlet. + +Aha, ashamed of him. + +Then the ladies got the table ready for coffee. Fresh brown waffles, +preserves after the Russian fashion, gleaming damask, knives and spoons +with buckhorn handles, the fine blue smoke of charcoal puffing up from +the chimney of the brass coffee machine, making everything still +cosier. + +We sat there drinking our coffee. Old Krakow blustered, the Baroness +smiled a fine melancholy smile, and Iolanthe made eyes at me. + +Yes, gentlemen, made eyes at me. You may be at the time of life when +that sort of thing happens to you none too rarely. But just you get to +be well on in your forties, conscious to the very depths of your soul +of your fatness and baldness, and you'll see how grateful you'll be +even to a housemaid or a barmaid for taking the trouble to ogle you. +And a thousand times more so if she happens to be one of the elite like +this one, a creature allowed to walk this earth by God's grace. + +At first I thought I hadn't seen straight, then I stuck my red hands in +my pockets, then I got a fit of coughing, then I swore at myself--"You +blooming idiot! you donkey!"--then I wanted to bolt, and finally I took +to staring into my empty coffee cup. Like an old maid. + +But when I looked up--I had to look up now and then--I always met those +great, light-blue languishing eyes. They seemed to say: + +"Don't you know I am an enchanted princess whom you are to set free?" + +"Do you know why I gave her that crazy name?" the old man asked, +grinning at her slily. + +She tossed her head scornfully and stood up. She seemed to know his +jokes. + +"This is how it was. She was a week old. She was lying in her cradle +kicking her legs--legs like little sausages. And her little buttocks, +you know----" + +Ye gods! I scarcely risked looking up, I was so embarrassed. The +Baroness behaved as if she heard nothing, and Iolanthe left the room. + +But the old man shook with laughter. + +"Ha--ha--such a rosy mite--such softness, and a shape like a rose leaf. +Well, when I looked at her, I said, in my young father's joy, 'That +girl's going to be beautiful and bad and will kick her legs the +whole of her life. She must have a very poetic name. Then she'll +rise in value with the suitors.' So I looked up names in the +dictionary--Thekla, Hero, Elsa, Angelica. No, they were all too +soft, like squashed plums. With a name like that she'll languish +away for some briefless lawyer. Then Rosaura, Carmen, Beatrice, +Wanda--nixy--too passionate--would elope with the manager of the +estate. Because a person's name is his fate. Finally I found Iolanthe. +Iolanthe melts so sweetly on your tongue--just the name for lovers--and +yet it doesn't lead on to silly freaks. It is both tempting and +dignified. It lures a man on, but inspires him with serious intentions, +too. That's the way I calculated, and my calculations have turned out +to be quite right so far, if in the end she doesn't remain on my hands +on account of her affectation and squeamishness." + +At this point Iolanthe came into the room again. Her eyes were half +closed and she was smiling like a child in disgrace. I was sorry for +the poor pretty creature, and to turn the conversation quickly, I began +to speak about the business I had come on. + +The ladies cleared the table without speaking, and the old man filled +the half-charred bowl of his pipe. He seemed inclined to listen +patiently. + +But scarcely did the name Puetz cross my lips when he jumped up and +dashed his pipe against the stove so that the burning tobacco leaves +flew about in all directions. The mere sight of his face was enough to +frighten you. It turned red and blue and swelled up as if he had been +seized with a stroke of apoplexy. + +"Sir-r-r!" he shouted. "Is that the reason you visited me--to poison my +home? Don't you know that that d---- name is not to be breathed in this +house? Don't you know I curse the fellow in his grave, and curse his +brood, and curse all----" + +At this point he choked and was seized with a fit of coughing and had +to sink down into his upholstered chair. The Baroness gave him +sweetened water to drink. + +I took up my hat without saying anything. Then I happened to notice +Iolanthe standing there white as chalk, with her hands folded, and +looking at me as if in her shame and misery she wished to beg my +pardon, or expected something like help from me. + +I wanted to say good-bye at least. So I waited quietly until I felt I +might assume that the old man, who was lying there groaning and +panting, was in a condition to understand me. Then I said: + +"Baron von Krakow, you must realise, of course, that after such an +attack upon my friend and his son, whom I love as if he were my own, +our relations----" + +He pounded with his hands and feet as a sign to me not to go on +speaking, and after trying several times to catch his breath, he +finally succeeded in saying: + +"That asthma--the devil take it--like a halter around your +neck--snap--your throat goes shut. But what's that you're cackling +about _our_ relations? _Our_ relations, that is, your and my relations, +there never has been anything wrong with them, my dear sir. They are +the best relations in the world. If I insulted that litigious fellow, +the--the--noble man, I take it all back and call myself a vile cur. +Only nobody must speak to me about him. I don't want to be reminded +that he has a son and heir. To me he's dead, you see--he's dead, dead, +dead." + +He cut the air three times with his fist, and looked at me +triumphantly, as if he had dealt my friend Puetz his death-blow. + +"Nevertheless, Baron----" I started to say. + +"No neverthelessing here. You are my friend! You are the friend of my +family--look at my womenfolk--completely smitten. Don't be ashamed, +Iolanthe! Just make eyes at him, child. Do you think I don't see +anything, goosie?" + +She did not blush nor did she seem to be abashed, but raised her folded +hands slightly. It was such a touching, helpless gesture that it +completely disarmed me. So I sat down again for a few moments and spoke +about indifferent matters. Then I took leave as soon as I could without +provoking him again. + +"Go to the door with him, Iolanthe," said the old man, "and be charming +to him. He's the richest man in the district." + +At that we all laughed. But walking beside me in the twilight of the +hall, Iolanthe said very softly, with a sort of timid grief: + +"I know you don't want to come again." + +"No, I don't," I said frankly, and was about to give my reasons, when +she suddenly snatched up my hand, pressed it between her slim white +palms, and said, half crying: + +"Oh, come again! Please, please come again." + +That's the way you're taken in. Old nincompoop that I was, I went daft +on the instant. + +In my excitement I chewed up the whole of my cigar on the ride home, +forgetting to light it. + +I made right for a mirror--lit all the lights, locked the door--back to +the mirror. Examined myself front and back, and, with the help of my +shaving mirror, my noble profile, too. + +Result--crushing. A heavy bald pate, bull's neck, puffs under my eyes, +double chin, my skin a fiery russet, like a glowing copper kettle. + +And what was worse than all that--when I looked at myself in all my six +feet of bulk, a chandelier went up. I knew why everybody immediately +called me a "good fellow." Even in the regiment they used to call me a +good fellow. + +Once you are branded with a Cain's mark like that, the rest of your +life turns into nothing but a series of events to prove the truth of +it. People come to you with hard-luck stories, you're a butt for their +jokes, they blarney you and borrow from you. If once you make a timid +attempt to defend yourself, then they say, "Why I thought you were a +good fellow!" So you can't get out of it. You are and you remain a good +fellow. You've been stamped and sealed. + +And then you, a good fellow, want to take up with women? With women, +who languish for the Mephistophelean, who, to love properly, want to be +deserted, duped, and generally maltreated. + +"Hanckel, don't be an ass," I said to myself. "Go away from the mirror, +put out the lights, knock those silly dreams out of your head, and get +into bed." + +Gentlemen, I had a bed--and still have it--a perfectly ordinary bed, as +narrow as a coffin, of pine, stained red--no springs, no mattress--a +deerskin instead. Twice a year it is filled with fresh straw. That was +the extent of my luxury. Gentlemen, there are many stories about the +poor camp cots of persons in high life. You see them on exhibition in +castles and historical museums, and when the visitors are herded past +them, they invariably clasp their hands and dutifully exclaim: + +"What power of renunciation! What Spartan simplicity!" + +Buncombe, gentlemen! You can't sleep more comfortably anywhere than on +a bed like that--provided, of course, that you have a good day's work +_behind_ you, a good conscience _within_ you, and no woman _beside_ +you--which all amount to about the same thing. + +You stretch yourself deliciously until your feet just touch the bottom +of the bed, you bite the comfortable a few times, burrow in the +pillows, reach out for a good book lying on the table next to the bed, +and groan from sheer bliss. + +That's what I did that night after the tempter had left me, and as I +slowly dozed off I thought: + +"Well, well, no woman will make you traitor to your dear, hard, narrow +bachelor's sack of straw, even if her name is Iolanthe, and even if she +is the finest thoroughbred that ever galloped about on God's lovely +pastures. + +"Perhaps all the less so. + +"Because--who knows?" + + + + + CHAPTER III + + +The next day I turned in my report to the boy--leaving out my +asininities, of course. + +He glowered at me with his dark eyes, and said: + +"Let's say no more about it. I thought so." + +But a week later he returned to the subject sort of by the way. + +"You ought to go there again after all, uncle." + +"Are you crazy, boy?" I said, though I felt as good as if a woman's +soft warm hand were tickling the nape of my neck. + +"You needn't mention me," he said, examining the tips of his boots, +"but if you go there several times, perhaps things will gradually right +themselves." + +Gentlemen, you couldn't have broken a reed more easily than my +resolution. + +So I drove over again. And again and again. + +I would let old Krakow go on with his vapourings, and I'd drink the +coffee his wife made for me, and listen devoutly while Iolanthe sang +her loveliest songs, even though music--in general--well, the oftener I +visited Krakowitz the uncannier the business became, but something +always tugged me back again. I couldn't help myself. + +The old Adam in me, before going to sleep forever, wanted a Last +Supper, even if it consisted of nothing but the pleasant sensation of a +woman's nearness. In the depths of my soul I had no hopes of anything +beyond that. + +To be sure, Iolanthe continued to cast furtive glances at me, but what +they indicated--whether a reproach, a cry for help, or merely the wish +to be admired--I never could make out. + +Then--on my third or fourth visit--the following happened. + +It was early in the afternoon--blazing hot. From boredom or impatience +I drove to Krakowitz. + +"The Baron and Baroness are asleep," said the lackey, "but the young +lady is on the verandah." + +I began to suspect all sorts of things, and my heart started to thump. +I wanted to go back home again, but when I saw her standing there, tall +and snowy white in her mull dress, as if chiselled in marble, my old +asininity came upon me again, stronger than ever. + +"How nice of you to come, Baron," she said. "I've been frightfully +bored. Let's go take a walk in the garden. There's a cool arbour where +we can have a pleasant chat without being disturbed." + +When she put her arm in mine, I began to tremble. I tell you, climbing +a hill under fire was easier than going down those steps. + +She said nothing--I said nothing. The atmosphere grew heavier. The +gravel crunched under our tread, the bees buzzed about the spiraea +bushes. Nothing else to be heard far or near. She clung to my arm quite +confidentially, and every now and then made me stop when she pulled out +a weed or plucked a piece of mignonette to tickle her nose with for an +instant and then throw it away. + +"I wish I loved flowers," she said. "There are so many people who love +flowers, or say they love them. In love affairs you can never get at +the truth." + +"Why not?" I asked. "Don't you think it ever happens that two human +beings like each other and say so--quite simply--without design or +ulterior motives?" + +"Like each other--like each other," she said tauntingly. "Are you such +an icicle that you translate 'love' by 'like'?" + +"Unfortunately, whether I am an icicle or not no longer matters," I +answered. + +"You're a noble-hearted man," she said, and looked at me sidewise, a +bit coquettishly. "Everything you think comes out as straight as if +shot from a pistol." + +"But I know how to keep quiet, too," I said. + +"Oh, I feel that," she answered hastily. "I could confide everything to +you, everything." It seemed to me that she pressed my arm very gently. + +"What does she want of you?" I asked myself, and I felt my heart +beating in my throat. + +At last we reached the arbour, an arbour of Virginia creeper, with +those broad, pointed leaves which keep the sun out entirely. It's +always night in arbours of Virginia creeper, you know. + +She let go my arm, kneeled on the ground, and crept through a little +hole on all fours. The entrance was completely overgrown, and that was +the only way to get inside. + +And I, Baron von Hanckel of Ilgenstein, I, a paragon of dignity, I got +down on all fours, and crawled through a hole no larger than an oven +door. + +Yes, gentlemen, that is what the women do with us. + +Inside in the cool twilight she stretched herself out on a bench in a +half reclining position, and wiped her bared throat with her +handkerchief. Beautiful! I tell you, she looked perfectly beautiful. + +When I got up and stood in front of her breathless, panting like a +bear--at forty-eight years of age, gentlemen, you don't go dancing on +all fours with impunity--she burst out laughing--a short, sharp, +nervous laugh. + +"Just laugh at me," I said. + +"If you only knew how little I felt like laughing," she said, with a +bitter expression about her mouth. + +Then there was silence. She stared into space with her eyebrows lifted +high. Her bosom rose and fell. + +"What are you thinking of?" I asked. + +She shrugged her shoulders. + +"Thinking--what's the good of thinking? I'm tired. I want to sleep." + +"Then go to sleep." + +"But you must go to sleep, too," she said. + +"Very well, I'll go to sleep, too." + +And I also half stretched myself out on the bench opposite her. + +"But you must shut your eyes," she commanded again. I obediently shut +my eyes. I saw suns and light--green wheels and sheaves of fire the +whole time--saw them the whole time. That comes from your blood being +stirred up. And every now and then I'd say to myself: + +"Hanckel, you're making a fool of yourself." + +It was so quiet I could hear the little bugs crawling about on the +leaves. + +"You must see what she's doing," I said to myself, hoping to be able to +admire her in her sleeping glory to my heart's content. + +But when I opened my eyes the least little bit to steal a look, I +saw--and, gentlemen, a shiver of fright went through me to the very +tips of my toes--I saw her eyes fixed on me in a wide, wild stare, in a +sort of spying frenzy, I may say. + +"But, Iolanthe, dear child," I said, "why are you looking at me that +way? What have I done to you?" + +She jumped to her feet as if startled out of a dream, wiped her +forehead and cheeks, and tried to laugh--two or three times--short, +abrupt little laughs, like before--and then she burst out crying, and +cried as if her heart would break. + +I jumped up and went over to her. I should have liked to put my hand on +her head, too, but I lacked the courage. I asked her if something was +troubling her and whether she would not confide in me, and so on. + +"Oh, I'm the most miserable creature on earth," she sobbed. + +"Why?" + +"I want to do something--something horrible--and I haven't got the +courage to." + +"Well, well, what is it?" + +"I can't tell you! I can't tell you!" + +That was all I could get out of her, though I did my best to persuade +her to confide more in me. But gradually her expression changed and +grew gloomier and more set. And finally she said in a suppressed voice +as if to herself: + +"I want to go away--I want to run away." + +"Good Lord, with whom?" I asked, completely taken aback. + +She shrugged her shoulders. + +"With whom? Nobody. There's nobody here who takes up for me--not even +the shepherd boy. But I must go away. I'm stifling here--I have nothing +to hope for here. I shall perish. And as there's nobody to come and +take me away, I'm going to go off by myself." + +"But, my dear young lady," I said, "I understand you're a trifle bored +at Krakowitz. It's a bit lonely--and your father kicks up a row with +all the neighbours. But if you would consent to marry. A woman like you +need only crook her little finger." + +"Oh, nonsense! Empty words. Who would want me? Do you know anybody who +wants me?" + +My heart beat frightfully. I didn't mean to say it--it was madness--but +there, it was out! I told her I wanted to prove to her that I for my +part was not talking empty words--or something of the sort. + +Because even after that I could not screw up my courage--God knows--to +make love to her regularly. + +She shut her eyes and heaved a deep sigh. Then she took hold of my arm +and said: + +"Before you leave, Baron, I want to confess something, so that you +should not be under a wholly wrong impression. My father and mother are +not asleep. When they heard your carriage coming up the drive, they +locked themselves in their room--that is, mother did not want to, but +father forced her to. Our being here together is a preconcerted plan. I +was to turn your head, so that you should ask me to marry you. Ever +since your first visit here both of them, both father and mother, have +been tormenting me, father with threats, mother with entreaties, not to +let the chance slip, because an eligible party like you would never +turn up again. Baron, forgive me. I didn't want to. Even if I had loved +you, oh, ever so much, that would have disgusted me with you. But now +that this is off my conscience, now I am willing. If you want me, take +me. I am yours." + +Gentlemen, put yourself in my place. A beautiful young woman, a perfect +Venus, throwing herself at me out of pride and despair, and I, a good, +corpulent gentleman in the late forties. Was it not a sort of sacrilege +to snatch up and carry off a bit of good fortune like that? + +"Iolanthe," I said, "Iolanthe, dear, sweet child, do you know what you +are doing?" + +"I know," she replied, and smiled a woebegone smile. "I am lowering +myself before God, before myself and before you. I'm making myself your +slave, your creature, and I am deceiving you at the same time." + +"You cannot even bear me, can you?" I asked. + +At that she made the same old light-blue eyes of innocence, and said +very softly and sentimentally: + +"You're the best, the noblest man in the world. I could love you--I +could idolise you, but----" + +"But?" + +"Oh, it's all so hideous--so impure. Just say you don't want me--just +throw me over--I don't deserve anything better." + +I felt as if the earth were going round in a circle. I had to summon my +last remnant of reason not to clasp the lovely, passionate creature in +my arms and hold her to my breast. And with that last remnant of reason +I said: + +"Far be it from me, dear child, to turn the excitement of this moment +to my profit. You might regret it to-morrow when it would be too late. +I will wait a week. Think it all over in that time. If by the end of +the week you have not written to take back your word, I will consider +the matter settled, and I will come over to ask your father and mother +for your hand. But think everything over carefully, so that you don't +plunge yourself into unhappiness." + +She caught hold of my hand--this awful, pudgy, horny, brown hand, +gentlemen--and before I could prevent her, she kissed it. + +It was not till much, much later that the meaning of that kiss was to +become clear to me. + +Scarcely had we crawled out of the arbour when we heard the old +gentleman screaming from a distance: + +"Is it possible? Hanckel--my friend Hanckel here? Why didn't you wake +me up, you scurvy blackguards, you? My friend Hanckel here, and I +snoring--you dogs!" + +Iolanthe turned scarlet. And I, to relieve the painful situation, said: + +"Never mind, I know him." + +Yes, gentlemen, I knew the old fellow, but I did not know his daughter. + + + + + CHAPTER IV + + +So that was the pass we had come to. On the drive home I kept repeating +to myself: + +"Hanckel, what a lucky dog you are! Such a treasure at your time of +life! Dance for joy, shout aloud, carry on like a crazy man. The events +of the day call for it." + +But, gentlemen, I did not dance for joy, I did not shout aloud, I did +not carry on like a crazy man. I looked over my bills and drank a glass +of punch. That was the extent of my celebration. + +The next day Lothar Puetz came riding up in his light-blue fatigue +uniform. + +"Still holding on to your commission, my boy?" I asked. + +"My resignation has not yet gone into effect," he answered, looking at +me grimly, but avoiding my eyes, as if I were the cause of all his +trouble. "At any rate, my leave has expired. I have to go to Berlin." + +I asked if he could not get an extension. But I noticed he did not want +it--was suffering with homesickness for the club. We all know what that +is. Besides, he had to sell his furniture, he explained, and arrange +with the creditors. + +"Well, then, go, my boy," I said, and hesitated an instant whether I +should confide my new joy to him. But I was afraid of the silly face +I'd make while confessing, so I refrained. Another thing that kept me +was a feeling stowed away deep down at the bottom of my heart--I was +counting on a rejection. I feared it, and I hoped for it, too. + +The feeling was something like--but what's the use of delving into +feelings? The facts will tell the story. + +Exactly a week later in the morning the postman brought me an envelope +addressed in _her_ handwriting. + +At first I was dreadfully afraid. Tears sprang into my eyes. And I said +to myself: + +"There, old man, now you've been relegated to the scrap heap." + +At the same time a peaceful renunciation came over me, and while +opening the envelope I almost wished I might find in it just a plain +mitten. + +But what I read was: + + +"Dear Friend:-- + +I have thought the matter over, as you wished. I am confirmed in my +decision. I shall expect to see you to-day when you call on my father. + + Iolanthe." + + +Happy! Well, of course, I was happy--at such a moment--it goes without +saying. But, then, how ashamed I was. Yes, gentlemen, ashamed, ashamed +to face a soul. And when I thought of all the dubious, sarcastic looks +that people would soon be casting at me, I felt I'd rather back out of +the business. + +But the hour had come. Up and be doing. + +First I beautified myself. I cut my chin twice shaving. One of the +stable-boys had to ride two miles to the chemist's to get me some +flesh-coloured court-plaster. My waistcoat was drawn in so tight I +could scarcely breathe, and my poor old sister nearly went wild trying +to give my necktie that careless, free-and-easy look I wanted. + +And all the time I kept thinking and thinking--it never left me for an +instant: + +"Hanckel, Hanckel, you're making an ass of yourself." + +But my entry into Krakowitz was grand--two dapper greys of my +own breeding--silver collar trimmings--a new landau lined with +wine-coloured satin. No prince in the world could have come a-wooing +more proudly. + +But my heart was thumping at my ribs in abject cowardice. + +The old man received me at the door. He behaved as if he hadn't the +faintest suspicion of what was doing. + +When I asked him for a talk in private, he looked surprised and made a +face, like a man scenting a "touch" from an unexpected quarter. + +"You'll soon be pulling in your sails," I thought. I naturally supposed +that at the first word there would be an excellently acted emotional +scene--kisses, tears of joy, and the rest of the rigmarole. + +That's how vain it makes you, gentlemen, to possess a wide purse. + +But the old fox knew how to drive a bargain. He knew you had to run +down the prospective purchaser in order to run up the price of your +goods. + +After I proposed for his daughter's hand, he said, all puffed up with +suddenly acquired dignity: + +"I beg pardon, Baron, but who will guarantee that this alliance, +which--revolve the matter as you will--has something unnatural about +it--who will guarantee that it will turn out happy? Who will guarantee +that two years from now my daughter won't come running back home some +night, bareheaded, in her nightgown, and say, 'Father, I can't live +with that old man. Let me stay here with you'?" + +Gentlemen, that was tough. + +"And in view of all these circumstances," he continued, "I am not +justified as an honourable man and father in entrusting my daughter to +you----" + +Very well, rejected, made a fool of. I rose, since the affair seemed to +me to be ended. But he hastily pressed me back into my seat. + +"Or, at least, in entrusting her to you and observing the forms that I +feel a man like me owes a man like you, or to express myself more +clearly--by which a father endeavours to assure his daughter's +future--or, to express myself still _more_ clearly--the dowry----" + +At that I burst out laughing. + +The old sharper, the old sharper! It was the dowry he had been sneaking +up to! That was what the whole comedy had been about. + +When he saw me laugh, he sent his dignity and his pathos and his +feeling of pride to the devil and laughed heartily along with me. + +"Well, if that's the way you are, old fellow," he said, "had I known it +right away----" + +And with that the bargain was struck. + +Then the Baroness was called in, and, to her credit be it said, she +forgot her assigned role and fell on my neck before her husband had had +a chance, for the sake of appearances, to explain the situation. + +But Iolanthe! + +She appeared at the threshold pale as death, her lips tightly +compressed, her eyes half shut. Without saying a word and standing +there motionless as a stone, she held both hands out to me, and then +allowed her parents to kiss her. + +You see, that gave me food for thought again. + + + + + CHAPTER V + + +What I had dreaded, gentlemen, did not come about. + +Evidently, I had underestimated my popularity in the district. My +engagement met with general favour, both among the gentry and the rest +of the people. Nothing but beaming faces when they shook hands and +congratulated me. + +To be sure, at such a time the whole world is in a conspiracy to lure a +man on still farther along the road to his fate. People are nice and +amiable to you and then, just when something threatens to go wrong, +they turn on you snapping and snarling. + +However that may be, I gradually got rid of my feeling of shame, and +behaved as if I had a right to so much youth and beauty. + +My old sister's attitude was touching, even though she was the only one +whom my marriage would directly injure. On my wedding day she was to +retire from Ilgenstein to be shelved at Gorowen, a family home of ours +for maiden ladies and dowagers. + +She shed streams of tears, tears of joy, and declared her prayers had +been heard, and she was in love with Iolanthe before she had seen her. + +But what would Puetz have said, Puetz who had always wanted me to marry +and had never got me to? + +"I'll make up to his son for it," I thought. + +I wrote Lothar a long letter. I half begged his pardon for having gone +a-wooing in his enemy's house and expressed the hope that in this way +the old breach would be healed. + +I waited a long time for his answer. When it came, just a few dry words +of congratulation and a line to say he would delay his return until +after the wedding day, since it would pain him to be at home on that +joyous occasion and yet not be able to be with me. + +That, gentlemen, piqued me. I really liked the boy, you know. + +Oh, yes--and Iolanthe troubled me. Troubled me greatly, gentlemen. + +She showed no real delight, you know. When I came, I found a pale, cold +face. Her eyes seemed positively blurred by the dismal look in them. It +was not until I had her to myself in a corner and got into a lively +talk that she gradually brightened and even showed a certain childlike +tenderness toward me. + +But, gentlemen, I was so nice. Awfully nice, I tell you! I treated her +as if she were the famous princess who could not sleep with a pea under +her mattress. Every day I discovered in myself a new delicacy of +feeling. I became quite proud of my delicate constitution. Only +sometimes I yearned for a naughty joke or a good round curse word. + +And that constantly having to be on the watch-out was a great exertion, +you know. I'm a warm-hearted fellow, I'm glad to say, and I can +anticipate another person's wants. Without any fuss or to-do. But I was +like a blindfolded tight-rope dancer. One misstep on the right--one +misstep on the left--plop!--down he falls. + +And when I came home to my great empty house, where I could shout, +curse, whistle, and do, heaven knows what else, to my heart's content +without insulting some one or setting some one a-shudder, a sense of +comfort tickled me up and down my backbone, and I sometimes said to +myself: + +"Thank the Lord, you're still a free man." + +But not for long. Nothing stood in the way of the wedding. It was to +take place in six weeks. + +My dear old Ilgenstein fell into the hands of a tyrannical horde of +workmen, who turned everything topsy-turvy. If I expressed a wish, +"Baron," they'd say, "that is not in good taste." Well, I let them have +their way. At that time I still had slavish respect for so-called "good +taste." It was not until much later that I realised that in most cases +back of "good taste" there is nothing but lack of real taste. + +Well, to cut it short, the bunch of them carried on so fearfully in the +name of that cursed "good taste" that finally nothing was left in my +dear old castle but my hunting-room and study. Here I emphatically put +my foot down on good taste. + +And my narrow old cot! Nobody, of course, was allowed to touch that. + +Gentlemen, that cot! + +And now listen. + +One day my sister, who stood in with the vile crew, came to my +room--with a certain bitter-sweet, bashful smile--the kind old maids +always smile when the question of how children come into the world is +touched upon. + +"I have something to say to you, George," she said, cleared her throat, +and peered into the corners. + +"Fire away." + +"Has it occurred to you," she stammered, "I mean, of course--I +mean--you see--you won't be able to sleep any more in that horrible +straw bag of a bed of yours." + +"Now, then, do let me have my comfort," I said. + +"You don't understand," she lisped, getting more confused. "I mean +after--when--I mean after the wedding." + +The devil! I had never thought of that! And I, old sinner though I was, +I looked just as shamefaced as she. + +"I'll have to speak to the cabinet-maker," I said. + +"George," she observed with a very important air, "forgive me, but I +understand more about such matters than you." + +"Eh, eh," I said, and shook my finger at her. It had always been such +fun for me to shock her old-maidishness. + +She blushed scarlet, and said: + +"I saw wonderful, perfectly wonderful bedroom furniture at my friends, +Frau von Housselle and Countess Finkenstein. You _must_ have your +bedroom furnished the same way." + +"Go ahead," I said. + +I'll have to tell you, gentlemen, why I gave in so easily. I knew my +father-in-law-to-be, the old miser, would not want to spend a single +cent on a trousseau. So I had said I had everything. Then I had to +hustle and order whatever was needed from Berlin and Koenigsberg. Of +course, I had forgotten about the bed. + +"What would you rather have," my sister went on, "pink silk covered +with plain net, or blue with Valenciennes lace? Perhaps it would be a +good idea to tell the decorator who is doing the dining-room to paint a +few Cupids on the ceiling." + +Oh, oh, oh, gentlemen, fancy! I and Cupids! + +"The bed," she continued mercilessly, "can't be made to order any +more." + +"What," I said, "not in six weeks?" + +"Why, George! The drawings, the plans alone require a month." + +I glanced sadly at my dear old bed--it hadn't needed any plans. Just +six boards and four posts knocked together in one morning. + +"The best thing would be," she went on, "if we wrote to Lothar and +asked him to pick out the best piece he can find in the Berlin shops." + +"Do whatever you want, but let me alone," I said angrily. As she was +leaving the room looking hurt, I called after her: "Be sure to impress +upon the decorator to make the Cupids look like me." + +That, gentlemen, will give you an idea of my bridal mood. + +And the nearer the wedding day came, the uncannier I felt. + +Not that I was afraid--or, rather, I was frightfully afraid--but apart +from that, I felt as if I were to blame, as if some wrong were being +done, as if--how shall I say? + +If I had only known who was being wronged. Not Iolanthe, because it was +her wish. Not myself--I was what they call the happiest mortal in the +world. Lothar? Perhaps. The poor fellow had looked on me as his second +father, and I was removing the ground from beneath his feet by going +over bag and baggage to the enemy's camp. + +So that was the way I kept the promise I had made my old friend Puetz on +his deathbed. + +Gentlemen, any of you who, under the pressure of circumstances, have +found yourselves in the council of the wicked--that thing happens once +in his life to every good man--will understand me. + +I thought and thought day and night and chewed my nails bloody. As I +saw no other way out of the situation, I decided to heal the breach at +my own expense. + +It wasn't so easy for me, because you know, gentlemen, we country +squires cling to our few dollars. But what doesn't one do when one is +officially a "good fellow"? + +So one afternoon I went to see my father-in-law-elect, and found him in +his so-called study lolling on the lounge. I put the proposition of a +reconciliation to him somewhat hesitatingly--to sound him, of course. +As I expected, he instantly flew into a rage, stormed, choked, turned +blue, and declared he'd show me the door. + +"How if Lothar sees he's wrong and gives up the case as lost?" I asked. + +Gentlemen, have you ever tickled a badger? I mean a tame or a half-tame +one? When he blinks at you with his sleepy little eyes, half +suspicious, half pleased, and keeps on snarling softly? That's just the +way the old fellow behaved. + +"He won't," he said after a while. + +"But if he does?" I asked. + +"Then you'll be the one to fork up for the whole business," he +answered--the fox--quick as a flash. + +"Should I lie?" I thought. "Ah--bah, the devil!" And I confessed. + +"Nope," he said point-blank. "Won't do, my boy. I won't accept it." + +"Why not?" + +"On account of the children, of course. I must think of my +grandchildren, in case you are magnanimous enough to present me with +some. I can't bequeath anything to them, so should I rob them besides? +I'll win the suit in all events, even if it lasts a few years longer. I +can wait." + +I set to work to try to persuade him. + +"The money remains in the family," I said. "I pay it and you get it. +After your death it will revert to me, of course." + +"Aha! You're already counting on my death?" he shouted, and began to +rage and storm again. "Do you want me to lay myself in my grave alive, +so that you can round off your estate with Krakowitz? I suppose it has +been a thorn in your eyes a long time, my beautiful Krakowitz has." + +There was no use struggling against such a bundle of unreason, so I +determined upon force. + +"This is my ultimatum, father," I said, "settlement and reconciliation +with Lothar Puetz are the sole conditions upon which I enter your +family. If you don't agree I shall have to ask Iolanthe to set me +free." + +That brought him round. + +"A man can't express the least little bit of feeling to you," he said. +"I think of your children, the poor unborn little mites, and you +immediately think of breaking your engagement and all that sort of +thing. If you insist, I won't interfere with your pleasure. I have no +personal feelings against Lothar Puetz. On the contrary, I'm told he is +a magnificent fellow, a smart rider, a dashing young sport. But my dear +man, I'll give you a good piece of advice. You're going to have a young +girl for your wife. If she were not my own daughter and so raised above +suspicion, I should suggest, 'Pick a quarrel with him, make him your +enemy, insist upon payment of old loans instead of making a new one.' +Nothing so sure as a sure thing, you know." + +Gentlemen, until then I had taken him humorously, but from that moment +on I hated him. Just let the wedding be over, then I'd shake him off. + +There was still one difficult thing to do, convince Lothar that the old +fellow admitted he had been wrong and had decided to give up the suit. + +The coup succeeded. It surprised Lothar so little that he even forgot +to thank me. + +Very well, all the same to me! + +I've already told you enough about Iolanthe. + +The tissue of such a relation, with its attempts at intimacy and its +chills, with its ebb and flow of confidence and timidity, hope and +despair, is too finely woven for my coarse hands to try to spread it +out before you. + +To her credit be it said, she honestly attempted to accommodate herself +to me. + +She tried to discover my likes and dislikes. She even tried to adapt +her thoughts to mine. Unfortunately she could not find very much there. +Where she in the freshness of her mind took it for granted that there +were live interests, there was often nothing but land long before +turned waste. That is what is so horrible about growing old. It slowly +deadens one nerve after the other. As we approach the fifties, both +work and rest conspire to make an end of us. + +Just then red neckties were in fashion. I wore a red necktie, and also +pointed boots, and silk lapels on my coat. + +I presented Iolanthe with rich gifts, a pearl necklace, which cost +three thousand dollars, and a famous solitaire that had come up for +auction in Paris. Every day roses and orchids were shipped to her from +my hothouses--but by express, because my flowers were less valuable +than my colts. + +By the way, my colts, you know--but no, I didn't set out to tell about +my colts. + + + + + CHAPTER VI + + +Well, at this point, gentlemen, I leave a blank and pass on to the +wedding day. + +My father--in--law, who always landed on his feet like a cat, had +decided to exploit my popularity for his own ends, and he utilised the +celebration of my wedding for renewing his connection with all the +people who had long been avoiding him. + +He dived deep into his pocket and arranged a prodigious feast, at +which, as he expressed it, champagne was to flow in rivulets along the +table. + +No need to tell you that the whole hullabaloo was a nuisance to me; but +that's just the trouble about being a bridegroom. He is a ridiculous +figure whose organs of will have been peeled out of his cranium for the +time being. + +On the morning of the great day I was sitting in my study--very +cross--the whole house stinking of paint--when the door opened and +Lothar came in. + +In high feather apparently--had on top boots--threw himself on my neck. +Hurrah! Dear old uncle! Travelled all night to be here on time; won the +prize the day before at the steeplechase; rode like the devil; didn't +break his neck anyhow; drank like a fish. Still he was fresh; ready to +dance like a top; brought some surprises along--very fiery kind; I was +to give him twenty-five men to drill immediately--and so forth. + +It came out in a stream while his black eyebrows kept jerking up and +down and his eyes glowed from under them like burning coals. + +"That is youth," I reflected and suppressed a sigh. I should have liked +to borrow those eyes of his for twenty-four hours and everything else +that went with them. + +"You don't ask about my bride?" I ventured. + +He laughed very loud. "Uncle, uncle, uncle! A pretty business! You +marrying? You marrying? And I sending off the sky rockets! Hurrah!" + +And still laughing he ran out of the room. + +I finished my cigar, much depressed. Afterwards, I thought, I would go +on a round of inspection through the renovated rooms. + +In front of the bedroom door my sister caught me just as she was having +her luggage carried away. + +"No admission here," she said. "This is to be a surprise to both of +you." + +Both of us? + +Silly! + +About eleven o'clock I started dressing. My coat cut into my shoulders. +My boots pinched me on the balls of my feet. For thirty years I had +been suffering from gout--a sequel to the Puetz punches. My shirt bosom +stiff as a board, necktie too short, everything awful. + +About two o'clock I drove to the bride's home, where the wedding was to +be celebrated. + +And now, gentlemen, comes a dream, or rather a nightmare, with all the +sensations of choking, of being strangled, of sinking into a pit. + +And yet full of happy moments, when I thought, "Everything will be all +right. You have your good heart and your fine intentions. You will +spread a carpet for her to tread on. She will walk the earth like a +queen and never notice her chains." + +While one coach after another came rolling into the courtyard and a +gallery of strange faces crowded at the windows, I ran about the garden +like one possessed, spattering my new fine patent leathers with mud, +and letting the tears run freely down my cheeks. + +But that pleasure was cut short. They were calling out for me +everywhere. + +I went into the house. The old man, beside himself with glee at seeing +as his guests all his old adversaries, men he had had tilts with, or +had insulted, or cheated, was running from one to the other, pressing +everybody's hand and swearing eternal friendship. + +I wanted to say "How do you do" to a couple of friends but I was pushed +with a great halloo into a room where they said my bride was awaiting +me. + +There she stood. + +In white silk--bridal veil like a lighted cloud around her--myrtle +wreath black and spiny on her hair--like a crown of thorns. + +I had to shut my eyes for a second, she was so beautiful. + +Stretching her hands out toward me she said: + +"Are you satisfied?" And she looked at me gently with an expression of +self-surrender; and her face with the smile it wore seemed like a +marble mask. + +Then I was overcome with happiness and a sense of guilt. I felt like +dropping down on my knees and begging to be forgiven for having dared +to want her for myself. But I was ashamed to. Her mother was standing +behind her and her bridesmaids and other stupid things were also there. + +I mumbled something that I myself did not understand, and because I did +not know what else to say, I walked up and down in front of her and +kept buttoning and unbuttoning my gloves. + +My mother-in-law, who herself did not know what to say, smoothed down +the folds of Iolanthe's veil and looked at me from the corner of her +eye half reproachfully, half encouragingly. + +At every turn I ran into a mirror, and--willy-nilly--I had to see +myself--my bald forehead, my lobster-coloured cheeks with the heavy +folds running into my chin, and the wart under the left corner of my +mouth. I saw my collar, which was much too tight--even the widest +girthed collar had not been wide enough--and I saw my grubby red neck +bulging over my collar all around like a wreath. + +I saw all that, and at each turn I was shaken with a mixed feeling of +madness and honesty, that I ought to cry out to her, "Have pity on +yourself! There is time yet. Let me go." + +You must remember there were no such things as civil weddings at that +time yet. + +I should never have brought myself to the point of saying it even if I +had kept walking to and fro for a thousand years. Nevertheless, when +the old man came sidling in, watchful as a weasel, to say, "Come along, +the pastor is waiting!" I felt injured, as though some deep-laid plan +of mine had been thwarted. + +I offered Iolanthe my arm. The folding doors were pulled open. + +Faces! Faces! Endless masses of faces! As if glued to one another. And +all of them leered at me as if to say: + +"Hanckel, you are making an ass of yourself." + +An avenue formed itself between them, and we walked down the avenue +while I kept thinking in the deathlike silence, "Strange that nobody +bursts out laughing." + +So we reached the altar, which the old man had constructed with awful +skill of a large packing box covered with red bunting. And quite an +exhibition of flowers and candles on it, with a crucifix in the middle, +as at a funeral. + +The pastor was standing in front of us. He put on his solemn +ministerial air and stroked back the wide sleeves of his vestment like +a sleight-of-hand man about to begin his tricks. + +First a hymn--five stanzas--then the sermon. + +I have not the slightest idea what the pastor said, for suddenly a +perverse thought entered my brain and became a fixed idea not to be +shaken off. + +She will say, "No!" + +And the nearer we drew to the decisive moment the more the anguish of +that thought throttled me. Finally I had not the least doubt in the +world that she would say "No." + +Gentlemen, she said "Yes." + +I heaved a sigh of relief, like a criminal who has just heard the +verdict "Not guilty." + +And now the strangest thing of all. + +Scarcely had the word crossed her lips and the fear of humiliation been +lifted from my soul than I began to wish, "Oh, if only she had said +'No'." + +After the Amen there were congratulations without end. I shook one hand +after another with genuine fervour. "Thank you" here, "Thank you" +there. I was grateful from the bottom of my heart to every fellow there +because in anticipation of the excellent food and drink to follow he +bestowed his polite congratulations upon me. + +Only one person was missing--Lothar. + +He stood in the back row looking quite sallow, as though he were hungry +or felt bored. + +"There he is, Iolanthe," I said and caught hold of him. "Lothar +Puetz--Puetz's only son--my own boy. Shake hands with him. Call him +Lothar!" She still hesitated, so I placed her hand in his and thought +to myself, "Thank God he is here. He will help us over many a difficult +hour." + +Please don't smile, gentlemen. You think that in the course of my +married life a love relation slowly developed between the two young +people. Not a bit of it. + +Just a little patience. Something very different is going to come. + +Well, to proceed. We went to table. + +Everything according to form and in abundance. Flowers, silverware, +baumkuchen. + +To begin with, a little glass of sherry to warm up your stomach. The +sherry was good but the glass was small and I could not see any more +sherry about. + +"Now you must be very gallant and tender to her," I said to myself and +looked at her sidewise. Her elbow was grazing my arm and I could feel +how she was trembling. + +"She's hungry," I thought, for I had not eaten a thing myself yet. + +Her eyes were fixed on the candelabra in front of her. Their silvery +sheen in the course of the years had faded and wrinkled like the skin +of an old woman. + +Her profile! God, how beautiful! + +And that was to belong to me. + +Nonsense! + +And I tossed off a tumblerful of thin Rhine wine, which gurgled in my +empty stomach like bubbles in a duck puddle. + +"This is not the way to muster up tenderness," I thought, looking +around longingly for the sherry. + +Then I pulled myself together. "Please eat something," I said, +satisfied that I had done something marvellous. + +She nodded and lifted her spoon to her mouth. + +After the soup came some excellent fish, Rhine salmon if I am not +mistaken, and the sauce had the proper admixture of brandy, lemon juice +and capers. Delicious, in short. + +Then came venison. Pretty good even if a little too fresh still. Well, +on this point opinions differ. + +"Do eat something," I said again, pursing my lips so that people should +think that what I was whispering was a compliment or something +sentimental. + +No, that sort of thing didn't get me any farther. + +Already I had disposed of the second bottle of the thin Rhine wine and +began to swell like a balloon. + +I looked around for Lothar, who had inherited from his father a scent +for everything drinkable, but he had been seated somewhere downstairs. + +Then I was saved by a toast, which gave me a chance to stand up. On my +rounds I discovered a small but select company of sherry bottles which +the old man had hidden behind a curtain. + +I picked up two of them quickly and started to pour courage into me. It +was a slow process but it succeeded. I can stand a good deal, you know, +gentlemen. + +After the venison came a salmi of partridges. Two successive dishes of +game are not quite the right thing, but they were mighty tasty. + +At just about this point something like a wall of mist loosened itself +from the ceiling and descended slowly--slowly. + +Now I was tossing gallantries right and left. I tell you, gentlemen, I +was going it. + +I called my bride "enchantress" and "charming sprite," and told a +rather broad hunting story, and explained to my neighbours of what use +the experiences are that a bachelor of today acquires before marrying. + +To be brief, gentlemen, I was irresistible. + +But the wall of mist kept sinking deeper and deeper. It was like in +mountain regions, where first the highest summits disappear and then +little by little the mountain side, one ledge after another. + +First the lights in the candelabra got reddish halos round them. They +looked like small suns in a vapoury atmosphere with rainbow rays +radiating from them. Then gradually everybody sitting behind the +candelabra talking and rattling forks disappeared from sight and sound. +Only at intervals did a white shirt bosom or a bit of a woman's arm +gleam from the "purple darkness"--isn't that what Schiller calls it? + +Oh, yes! Something else struck me. + +My father--in--law was running around with two bottles of champagne, +and whenever he saw an entirely empty glass, he would say, "Please do +have some more. Why don't you drink?" + +"You old fraud!" I said when he bobbed up back of me, and I pinched his +leg, "is that what you call letting it flow in rivulets?" + +You see, gentlemen, my condition was growing dangerous. And all of a +sudden I felt my heart expanding. I had to talk. I simply had to talk. +So I struck my glass madly for silence. + +"For heaven's sake--keep quiet!" my bride--I beg your pardon, my +wife--whispered in my ear. + +But even if it cost me my life I had to talk. + +What I said was reported to me afterwards, and if my authorities tell +the truth, it was something like the following: + +"Ladies and gentlemen, I am no longer young. But I do not regret that +at all, for maturity also hath its joys. And if anybody were to assert +that youth can be happy only when wedded to youth, I would say, 'An +infamous lie! I myself am proof of the contrary. For I am no longer +young, but I am going to make my young wife happy because my wife is an +angel--and I have a loving heart--yea, I swear I have a loving heart, +and whoever says that here underneath my waistcoat--there beats no +loving heart--to him--I would like to lay bare my heart----'" + +At this point, according to reports, my words were choked by tears, and +in the middle of my abject outpourings I was hustled from the room. + + + * * * * * + + +When I awoke I was lying on a couch much too short for me, with all +kinds of fur collars and caps and woollen wraps thrown over me. My neck +was strained, my legs numb. + +I looked around. + +On a console under a mirror a single candle was burning. Brushes, +combs, and boxes of pins lay beside it. On the walls hung a mass of +cloaks, hats and all that sort of thing. + +Oho, the ladies' dressing room! + +Slowly I became conscious of what had happened. I looked at the clock. +Nearly two. Somewhere, as though at a great distance, the playing of a +piano and the scraping and sliding of dancing feet in time with the +music. + +_My_ wedding! + +I combed my hair, arranged my necktie, and heartily wished I might lie +right down in my lovely hard camp bed and pull the covers over my ears, +instead of--brr! + +Well, there was nothing to be done about it. So I started for the +reception rooms, though without any real feeling of shame, as I was +still too sleepy and drowsy to comprehend the state I was in fully. + +At first nobody noticed me. + +In the rooms where the gentlemen were sitting the smoke was so thick +that at only a few feet away all you could discern was merely the vague +outlines of human bodies. A very steep game of cards was under way, and +my father-in-law was relieving his guests of their money so neatly that +had he had three more daughters to marry off he would have become a +rich man. + +He called it "making wedding expenses." + +I glanced in at the room where the dancing was going on. The dowagers +were fighting off sleep, the young people were hopping about +mechanically, while the pianist opened his eyes only when he struck a +wrong note. My sister was holding a glass of lemonade on her lap and +was inspecting the lemon seeds. It was a doleful sight. + +Iolanthe nowhere to be seen. + +I returned to the card tables and tapped the old man on his shoulder as +he was scooping up the stake he had just won and was stuffing it into +his pocket. + +He turned on me savagely. + +"Well, you drunkard, you!" + +"Where is Iolanthe?" + +"I don't know. Go find her." And he went on playing. + +The other gentlemen looked embarrassed, but acted as though nothing had +happened. "Won't you try your luck, young Benedict?" they clamoured. + +So I made off with all haste, for I knew my weakness. Had I taken a +hand, there would have been another scandal. + +I sneaked around outside the dancing hall. I did not feel equal to +meeting the glances of the dowagers. + +In the corridor a tin kitchen lamp was smoking, from the pantries came +the rattle of plates and the giggling of half-drunken kitchen maids. + +Awful! + +I knocked on the door of Iolanthe's room. + +No answer. Knocked again. Everything quiet. So I went in. + +And what did I see? + +My mother-in-law sitting on the edge of the bed and my wife kneeling +beside her dressed already in her black travelling gown, her head in +her mother's lap, and both women crying. It was enough to move a stone +to pity. + +Oh, gentlemen, how I felt! + +I should have liked to rush to my carriage, call "To the station" to +the coachman, and take the first train out of the place--to America, or +any place where embezzling cashiers and prodigal sons go to and +disappear. + +But that wouldn't do. + +"Iolanthe," I said humbly and contritely. + +Both the women screamed. My wife clasped her mother's knees, while the +mother put protecting arms around her. + +"I won't annoy you, Iolanthe; I only ask your forgiveness because, out +of love for you, I was so reckless." + +A long silence--broken only by her sobbing. + +Then her mother spoke. + +"He is right, child. You must get up. It's time for you to be going." +Iolanthe rose slowly, her cheeks wet, her eyes red as fire, her body +still shaken with sobs. "Give him your hand. It can't be helped." + +Very pleasant remark--"It can't be helped." + +And Iolanthe gave me her hand, and I raised it reverently to my lips. + +"George, have you seen my husband?" asked my mother-in-law. + +"Yes." + +"Please call him. Iolanthe wants to say good-bye." + +I went back to the card room. + +"Father!" + +"Twelve, sixteen, twenty-seven, thirty-one." + +"Father!" + +"Thirty-three--what do you want?" + +"We want to say good-bye." + +"Well--go--and God bless you--and be happy!--thirty-six----" + +"Don't you want to see Iolanthe?" + +"Thirty-nine--won!--out with the cash!--who's still got the courage for +another? George, won't you take a little flyer with us?" + +I got out of the room. + +I told the ladies as considerately as I could that the Baron would not +come. They merely looked at each other and then led the way through the +smoky corridor to the back steps, where the carriage was waiting. + +The wind was whistling in our ears and a few scattering raindrops +struck our faces. The two women clung to each other without saying +anything as though they would never let each other go. + +Now the old man, who had evidently thought better of it, came running +out with a great hullabaloo, and behind him the maids, whom he had +summoned, with lamps and candles. + +He threw himself between mother and daughter and let loose. + +"My dear child, if the blessing of a loving father----" + +She shook him off--just like a wet dog. With a jump into the +carriage--I behind--off! + + + + + CHAPTER VII + + +There we were seated together. Torches flickering at the gate. Then +everything dark and black. + +Gentlemen, that was a memorable ride! + +The carriage wheels splashed through the mud puddles--ss--ss--ss. +The wind whistled and howled. The rain drummed on the top of the +carriage--tara tata! Tara tata! + +"And now, what are you going to do with her?" I asked myself. + +She was not to be seen, heard, or felt. As if I were driving through +the night absolutely by myself. It was not until we reached the woods +and the light from the lanterns shone on the wet birch trees so that a +gleam of light was reflected back into the carriage that I saw her +cowering in the corner as though she were trying to press through the +side and throw herself out. + +Good Heavens! Such a poor little thing! Bereft of all that made up her +old existence and beholding in her new world nothing but an oldish +fellow who had just been dead drunk. + +The devil! How ashamed of myself I felt. + +"Iolanthe." + +But, of course, I had to say something. + +Not a sound. + +"Are you afraid of me?" + +"Yes." + +"Won't you give me your hand?" + +"Yes." + +"Where is it?" + +"Here." + +Slowly--very slowly--something soft touched my sleeve. I caught it, I +held it fast, I covered it up. + +Poor thing! Poor thing! + +And at the same time a kind of--I might call it "sacred fire" if I +wanted to be sentimental--took possession of me. In my hour of need, I +found beautiful, warm, comforting words to say to her. + +"You see, Iolanthe," I said, "you are now my wife. There's no changing +that. And, after all, you wanted it yourself. But you mustn't suppose I +shall bother you with all sorts of amorous ways and make demands. It is +a true friend who is sitting here beside you--I may say a fatherly +friend, if you can get any comfort out of that--because I haven't the +least idea of trying to disguise the fact that I am much older than +you. So, my dear, if your heart is heavy and if you want to cry to your +heart's content, you'll never find a breast on which you can rest more +securely. Always come to me for refuge, just come to me even if you do +feel that I am the enemy from whom you are seeking refuge." + +That was very nicely said, wasn't it? It was inspired by my sympathy +and by my pure unqualified good will. + +Poor old me! As if a little bit of youthful fervour were not worth a +thousand times more than the deepest sympathy and all that. But at the +moment the impression of what I said was so strong that I myself was +frightened. + +With one bound she was out of her corner, with her arms round my neck, +kissing my face through her veil and saying between sobs: + +"Forgive me--forgive me, you dear, dear man." + +At this I thought of the scene at our engagement when she had puzzled +me by the same behaviour. + +"What's all this?" I said. "What am I always to forgive you for?" + +She did not answer. She merely withdrew to her corner, and from then on +not another sound from her lips. + +The rain had stopped falling, but the wind blew at the carriage windows +more madly than ever. Then--suddenly--a flash of lightning! And hard +upon it a peal of thunder. + +The horses reared and curvetted toward the ditch. + +"Rein them in tight, John!" I cried. Of course he didn't hear me. +However, the beasts stood still. His fists were like iron. I never had +a better coachman. + +The thunderbolt turned out to be nothing but a signal. Peal after peal +followed--right and left--everywhere. Flaming roofs, balls of fire, +towers aglow, and the park all alight with a beautiful emerald green. + +My good old Ilgenstein transformed into a real fairy castle. + +A shiver of pure delight went through me at being able to show her the +new home bathed in such splendour. All this I owed to Lothar--the dear +boy--and perhaps much more. For often it is the first impression that +casts the lot for a whole life. + +Iolanthe leaned out of the carriage window, and in the red glow I saw +her eyes looking ahead in a kind of eager or anxious searching. + +"All this is yours, my dear," I said and tried to find her hand. + +But she did not hear me. She seemed to be completely overwhelmed by the +beautiful picture. + +As we drew into the court, bedlam broke loose--a shouting and shooting, +drums and trumpets, torches and lanterns on all sides, and faces +blackened by smoke, glowing eyes, open mouths. + +"Hurrah! Long live his Lordship! Long live her Grace! Hurrah!" Such a +trampling and waving of hats! The horde of them behaved as though +possessed. + +"Well," I thought to myself, "now she certainly must see that she isn't +married to a bad man, since his servants love him so much," and, primed +for emotion as one is at such times, I began to blubber a bit. + +When the carriage stopped, I saw Lothar standing in front of the door +among the inspectors and apprentices. I jumped out and took him into my +arms. + +"My boy! My dear, dear boy!" In my thankfulness I could have kissed his +hand. + +When I started to assist my young wife out of the carriage, that +unfortunate creature, the chief inspector, in the midst of the +excitement, started to treat us to a solemn speech. + +"For God's sake, Baumann," I said, "we'll take all that for granted," +and I helped Iolanthe into the house. + +There the housemaids were standing, curtseying and tittering, the +housekeeper at their head. But Iolanthe stared right past them. + +Then I was seized by dread of what was to come. + +"Oh, if you had not sent your sister away!" I thought, and looking +around for help I spied Lothar in the doorway, apparently about to take +leave. I rushed over to him and caught his hands. + +"Come now, you aren't leaving us, are you? After all this trouble we +must have something hot together--what do you say?" + +He turned red as blood, but I led him over to Iolanthe, who had just +been relieved of her hat and cloak. + +"You must help me persuade him to stay, Iolanthe. His exertions for us +have surely earned him a cup of tea." + +"I ask you," she said, without even raising her eyes. + +He made a stiff bow, and pulled at his moustache. + +I led them through the lighted halls to the dining-room. + +She looked neither to the right nor the left. All the splendour brought +into being for her sake shone unnoticed. Two or three times she reeled +on my arm, and at each crisis I looked anxiously about to see if the +boy was with us. + +Praised be the Lord! He was still there! + +In the dining-room the tea kettle was boiling, by my sister's orders +before she left. + +"Suppose you send for her?" flashed through my mind. "One carriage +hurried off to Krakowitz, another to Gorowen--and she might be here +inside of an hour." + +But I, poor old blade, was ashamed to admit my helplessness. Besides, +there was Lothar for me to cling to in my desperation. + +Thank God, Lothar was still with us. + +"Well, be seated, children." I assumed the air of being wonderfully at +ease. + +I can still see the whole scene. The snowy white tablecloth, the +Meissen china, the old silver sugar bowl, the hanging lamp of copper +overhead and in its hard light, to my right, Iolanthe, pale, stiff, +with half-closed eyes, like a somnambulist; to my left, Lothar with his +bushy hair and firm brown cheeks and the sombre fold between his brows, +his eyes fixed on the tablecloth. + +Seeing that evidently the boy felt _de trop_ and would much rather have +run away, I laid my hands affectionately on his shoulders and thanked +him from the bottom of my heart for the torture he was imposing upon +himself. + +"Take a good look at him, Iolanthe," I said. "We three shall be sitting +here like this many a time again, enjoying each other's company." + +She nodded very slowly and closed her eyes altogether. + +Poor thing! Poor thing! And the dread almost took my breath away. + +"Be jolly, children," I said. "Lothar, tell us something funny--out of +your own life. Come on now. Have you anything to smoke? No? Wait a +moment, I'll get you something." + +And in my anguish I made for the cigar cabinet in the next room, as +though a good smoke would bring everything to a happy ending. + +And then, gentlemen, when I came back with the box under my arm, I saw +something through the open door that stopped the blood in my veins. + +Only once in my life have I experienced a similar shock. That was one +evening when I was still a young cuirassier and I came home from a +jolly party to find a telegram for me with the pleasant message, +"Father just died." + +But now as to what it was that I saw, gentlemen. + +The two young people were sitting still and stiff on their chairs, as +before, but they had, so to speak, dipped their eyes into each other's, +and there was a wild, despairing, insane glow in them such as I had +never thought could shine out of human eyes. It was like two flames +darting sparks into each other. + +So there I was. Not yet my wife, and already my friend, my son, my +favourite, betraying me with her. + +Adultery in the house even before the marriage had really been +consummated. + +In that look my whole future--an existence of suspicion, and dread and +gloom and ridicule, full of grey days and sleepless nights--lay +unrolled before me like a map. + +What was I to do, gentlemen? + +My impulse was to take her by the hand and say to him, "She's yours, my +boy. I have no longer any right over her." + +But please put yourselves in my position. A look is something +intangible and undemonstrable. It may be denied with a smile. And, +after all, might I not have been mistaken? + +And while I revolved this in my mind, the two pairs of eyes continued +to cling to each other in complete oblivion of everything about them. + +When I walked into the room, there was not even a twitch of an eyelid. +They even turned toward me as if in surprise and indignation and as if +to ask: + +"Why does this old man, this stranger, intrude upon us?" + +I felt inclined to roar out like a wounded beast. However, I collected +myself and offered the cigars. But I felt I had to put an end to the +business quickly. All kinds of red suns were beginning to dance in +front of my eyes. + +So I said, "Go home, my boy, it's time." + +He rose heavily, gave me an icy handshake, and made his lieutenant's +bow to her with joined heels, and turned towards the door. + +Then I heard a cry--a cry that pierced me to the quick. + +And what did I see? + +My wife, my young wife, lying at his feet, holding on to his coat with +both hands, and crying, "You must not die! You must not die!" + +Well, gentlemen, the catastrophe at last! + +For a moment I stood like a man hit over the head. Then I caught Lothar +by the collar. + +"Stop, my boy," I said, "that's enough. I won't have any tricks played +on me." + +Still holding his collar I led him gently back to his seat, closed the +doors, and lifted my wife, who was lying on the floor weeping +convulsively, to a couch. + +But she caught my hands and started to kiss them, whimpering, "Don't +let him go! He wants to kill himself--he wants to kill himself!" + +"And why do you want to kill yourself, my boy?" said I. "If you had +prior rights to mine, why did you not assert them? Why did you deceive +your best friend?" + +He pressed his hands to his forehead and remained silent. + +Then I fell into a rage and said, "Say something, or I'll knock you +down like a mad dog!" + +"Do it," he said, stretching out his arms. "I have deserved nothing +better." + +"Deserved or not--now you must tell me what all this means." + +Well, gentlemen, then I learned the whole pretty story from the two of +them together, to the accompaniment of self-reproaches, tears and +bended knees. + +Years before they had met in the woods and fell in love for ever +after--hopelessly and silently, as behooved the off spring of two +feuding families--Montagues and Capulets. + +"Did you confess your love to each other?" + +No, but they had kissed each other. + +"And then?" + +Then he had gone on garrison duty in Berlin and they heard no more of +each other. They did not dare to write, and each was uncertain of the +other's affection. + +Then came the death of old Puetz and my attempt to bring about a +reconciliation. When I appeared at Krakowitz, Iolanthe conceived the +plan at first of making me a confident of her love. In fact, she hoped +to receive a message through me. Nothing of the kind. Instead, I +misunderstood her tender glances and played the enamoured swain myself. +Then, when her father's burst of rage proved clearly that there never +would be a bit of hope for her, she decided in her despair to avail +herself of the one possible way of at least getting near her beloved. + +"Ah, but, my dear, that was really a contemptible thing for you to do." + +"But I longed for him so," she answered, as though that made everything +right. + +"Very good--excellent! But you, my son, why didn't you come and say, +'Uncle, I love her, she loves me, hands off!'" + +"But I did not know if she still loved me." + +"Splendid! You are a precious pair of innocents, you two. When did you +finally find out?" + +"To-day--while you were asleep." + +And now came a terrible story. After dinner, on leaving the table, a +single handshake in silence showed each how miserable the other one +was, and seeing no way out, they decided to die that very night. + +"What! You, too?" + +Instead of answering Iolanthe pulled out of her pocket a little bottle +from which a human skull grinned at me. + +"What's that?" + +"Cyanide of potassium." + +"The devil! Where did you get that from?" + +Presented to her some years ago by a friend of hers at the dancing +school, a chemist whose head she had turned. She had asked him to give +her the pleasant drink. + +"And you were going to take that stuff, you little goose, you?" + +She looked at me with big glaring eyes and nodded two or three times. + +I understood very well, and a shudder passed down my back. A fine +bridal night it might have been! + +"And now? What am I going to do with the two of you now?" + +"Save us! Help us! Have mercy on us!" + +They were on their knees before me, licking my hands. + +And because I, as you know, gentlemen, am a professional good fellow, I +devised a means of bringing my failure of a marriage to a speedy end. + +John was ordered to hitch up, and fifteen minutes later, without any +to-do, I was driving my twelve-hour bride to Gorowen to my sister, +under whose protection she was to remain until the divorce had been +decreed--under no circumstances would she return to her father's house. + +Lothar asked me quite naively if he might not go with us. + +"You rascal!" I said. "Off home with you!" + +At the right time and place, gentlemen, I can be very severe. + + + * * * * * + + +It was striking half-past four as I got back to Ilgenstein. + +I was beastly tired. My legs were hanging from my body like pieces of +dead wood. Everything was quiet, as I had sent the whole household to +bed before going. + +Walking along the corridor, where the lights were still burning, I saw +a door decorated with wreaths. It led to the bridal chamber which my +sister had kept locked up till then as a surprise. + +Moved by curiosity I opened the door and looked in. I beheld a purple +sepulchral vault, a mixture of strange scents almost choked me. +Everything was hung with curtains and draperies, and from the ceiling +swung a real lighted church lamp. In the background, on a raised dais, +there had been erected a sort of catafalque with golden ornaments and +silken covers. + +It was there that I should have had to sleep! + +"B-r-r-r!" I said and shut the door and ran away as quickly as my +limping legs would carry me. + +And then I came to my own room and lit my lovely bright students' lamp. +It smiled at me like the sun itself. + +In the corner stood my old narrow camp bed with its red-stained posts, +the grey straw bag, and the worn deerskin robe. + +Well, gentlemen, you can imagine how delicious I felt. + +I undressed, lit a good cigar, jumped into bed, and read an interesting +chapter of the history of the Franco-Prussian War. + +And I can assure you, gentlemen, that I never slept more soundly than +on my bridal night. + + + + + + THE WOMAN WHO WAS HIS + FRIEND + + +Oh, how tired I am, dear lady! I've been writing New Year's letters the +whole day and have disposed of everything that has gone unanswered the +entire year. Goodness, what ancient debts turned up! And what an awful +lazybones I've been! The number of good friends that I've insulted +through sheer neglect, the number of little thorns I've left sticking +in people's flesh! But enough said. + + +I sent out New Year's cards, too, and you will also receive my card on +New Year's morning with a stiff "Many wishes for a Happy New Year" and +not so much as even a sugary little verse beside the 1/1/86. + +Don't laugh. On second thought 1/1 is a highly significant figure, and +we oughtn't to make fun of it the way I did. The day it designates is a +turning-point for people's hearts. On that day love changes its +residence. Not always, of course. Many people have a contract for a +number of years, for life even, and it's a good snug berth that love +falls into in homey dwelling-places like that. But the giddy creatures, +the butterflies--if one may speak of butterflies at New Year--the ones +that have been evicted and all the others who are looking for new +quarters either out of choice or out of necessity--you see them +preparing at New Year's time for moving in or moving out. + +Why just at New Year's time, you ask? + +Another season has begun, new relations are entered into, new intrigues +are woven, inclinations newly awakened crop up shyly to the surface. +Christmas belonged to the old era still; the happiness comfortably +enjoying itself in dressing-gown and slippers still held sway over the +discomforts of the new passion knocking turbulently at the door. But +now, at New Year, there's a general clearing out, and all worn +love-goods are disposed of "previous to removal," as the advertisements +read. + +The heart's change of residence is probably the saddest there is. Many +things get broken and many a cherished memento falls into the gutter. +But if it cannot be prevented, then the moving may as well be done +thoroughly and energetically. + +"Off with the old love before you're on with the new." + +A truth of startling pregnancy. Many a person has arrived too late +because he lingered too long saying good-bye. Piles of novels could be +written on this subject. + +Sometimes, too, the heart stays in the old house but moves to another +apartment. Then hate follows love and love follows hate, the latter, at +least, in Marlitt's romances. And more than this, friendship moves in +where love once dwelt. + +And then, finally, there are the cases in which friendship clears the +way for love. + +You shake your head. You believe friendship never clears the way for +love? You mean because we two friends are so proof against love? Oh, we +are the exception. Between us rises the intellectual love of truth like +a crystal wall in the Arctic Ocean. But I can give you examples, my +dear lady, any number of examples, of friendship clearing the way for +love. And mostly unhappy examples. + +It seems to be an iron law of happiness that love should begin with +passion and end in the peace of tranquil friendship--marriage, I mean. +The reverse way is not excluded, but it leads--to the desert. + +There are abstract enthusiasts that construe the marriage of souls as a +necessary preliminary to physical love. But nature punishes lying. When +friendship between a man and a woman ends in love, either the +friendship or the love is not true. And woe, woe if the friendship has +not been friendship but love. + +Apropos of this--do you happen to remember the portrait of a woman that +created such a stir at the exhibition two or three years ago and +brought the painter so much fame and so many orders? A frail figure, +almost too frail, in a simple black velvet dress. A thin suffering +face, a pale forehead with the crown on it of the quiet aristocracy of +thought. Half-closed dreamy eyes, a bluish gleam from between dark +lashes. Upper lip covered with fine down and an expression of longing +and smiling melancholy about the mouth. Now I remember to a dot. You +and I admired the picture together. You stood studying it a long time +and then said: + +"That's the way I fancy Vittoria Colonna must have looked." + +I said nothing to that. I was astonished by your keenness, because +there really were many resemblances of character between the lady of +the portrait and Michael Angelo's unhappy friend. Her fate, too, was +curiously like Vittoria Colonna's. Of course, I may not tell how I came +to know her story. At that time it was still in progress, and the +change that came later--well---- + +She was the widow of a well-known architect. His house was a social +centre for a swarm of talented young artists, among them K----, the +painter of the portrait. He was a jolly young fellow, easy-going and +saucy. The maelstrom of the years at the Academy had not destroyed the +perfect childlikeness of his genius, and, as a result, the air of being +blase and weighted with the woes of the world that he put on in +deference to his varied experiences was all the more becoming as at the +slightest provocation he dropped this manner and burst into a ringing +laugh. + +Hedwig soon realised there was a sound core to the young man's rather +giddy character, and since everybody felt that his talent was of the +first order and only needed a little cultivation to bear glorious +fruit, she took pleasure in looking out for him. And he, for his part, +surrendered himself ardently to the guidance of a woman a few years +older than himself, a woman whom he came to adore. + +He brought her his sketches, and she passed upon them, with a sharp eye +for both the painter's sense of form and for the tiniest slip of his +still uncertain hand. He made her the confidante of his creative ideas, +which gushed from his brain impetuously, and he received them back from +her matured and refined. There was not a corner of his heart that did +not lie open to her view, and she was wise enough even to place the +right estimate upon the youthful coarseness with which his sentiments +sometimes bubbled over. Another woman might have felt hurt, while she +took it as evidence of his surplus of strength, and smiled and gently +poked fun at him, and so brought harmony out of the chaos within him. + +She showered riches on him, and what she got back in return was +scarcely less in value. Held fast at the side of an ill-tempered aging +husband, an ailing woman herself and growing weaker from year to year, +she had matured in mind at an early age; and she had paid toll in the +loss of youthful spirits and elasticity. But now whole streams of a +fresh blithe life poured out of him into her. She felt rejuvenated in +his presence. And a tender motherliness, the shadow of a joy that had +been denied her, was interwoven with her other feelings for him. + +Her husband was glad to see his lonely wife occupied and did not +interfere. And why should he have interfered? Never was there less +occasion for jealousy. The young scapegrace, as a matter of fact, even +confided his love affairs to her, and she tried by smiling advice to +render them at least innocuous enough not to hamper the development of +his talent. + +Three years passed. Hedwig's husband died. Her illness had grown worse, +and at the physician's advice she went south, to Nice. + +She lived in great retirement, broken into only now and then, when a +young genius long of hair and none too clean of shirt turned up in her +modest drawing-room, generally in money difficulties and bringing a +letter of recommendation from her friend. + +Her one diversion was corresponding with K----, whose work and position +kept him in Berlin. + +He often wrote her that he adored her like a saint. + +She, for her part, parried his onslaughts of ecstasy and was satisfied +that in spite of his volatile nature and his growing fame, he preserved +his old liking for her. + +Three years more passed. Then, once, late in autumn he suddenly +appeared at Nice, tired, worn out by work, spiritually desolate, +unsteadier than ever, but--a full-grown man. + +"I have come to be cured by you," he exclaimed the first time he was in +her house. + +She wept for joy. + +Soon they dropped into greater intimacy than ever, and yet she +sometimes experienced a sense of shyness which she had not felt before +in her relation with him, for the very reason that he was no longer the +boy she could look down on with unconstrained motherliness. The +difference in years seemed to have been wiped out, inwardly as well as +outwardly, and he had grown close to her intellectually, alarmingly +close. + +He often complained to her of his afflictions--the miserable headaches +that kept bothering him, the result of overwork, and then the worries +of his profession, the disillusionments. They were by no means +formidable, but easily too much for the spoiled darling of fortune. She +devoured everything he said. The least little thing of concern to him +assumed prodigious importance. + +But there seemed to be a good deal that he did not tell her. + +"And how about the women?" she asked, smiling, though tortured by +suddenly rising jealousy. + +"Oh, let's not talk of the women. I've forgotten every one of them. Now +you are my one and only one." + +She thrilled, but said nothing. Oh, had he known how _her_ whole being +lost itself in his! + +These words of his caressed her from now on, echoing even in her sleep +at night. + +They celebrated Christmas together. + +When the candles were burning on the tree and the homelike scent of +pine and apples filled the room, he caught her hands, looked long into +her eyes smiling, and said: + +"You know, you and I ought really to marry." + +She felt her blood bounding hot through her veins, but she held on to +herself, and burst out laughing. + +"You think I'm joking," he went on. "No, no, I'm not. I am in deep +earnest. You yourself tell me--we're each of us alone, we don't care +about the world, we have come to understand each other as no other two +people on earth have ever understood each other. Why should we not +share our fate the rest of our lives?" + +"Now do be sensible," she said, trying to keep up a show of lightness, +"and don't talk such nonsense any more; for nonsense it is, whether +said in fun or in deep earnest. Exactly what you need--a woman hanging +round your neck who is five years older than you and soon will be +altogether faded. Besides, you don't strike me as having been born to +be a nurse, and you know I am slowly making my way graveward. So the +matter's settled." + +That night she cried to herself. + +The next day his headache bothered him worse than ever. With her he was +privileged to make himself comfortable, and he stretched out on the +sofa, and she adjusted the cushions under his head. + +"Your hands are always so cool," he said. "In the days of old you +sometimes used to stroke my forehead so soothingly. It did me no end of +good. I have spoiled my chance for that form of happiness, too." + +She passed her shaking hand over his head and brow, and when she +touched his cheek, he caught her fingers in both his hands. + +"Let them stay there," he said with a great sigh. "My cheeks are on +fire." + +Her cheeks were burning, too. + +Christmas week went by, and the man and the woman drew still closer +together in the solitude of their hearts. New Year's eve came, and they +decided to wait up and greet the new year together. + +Hedwig was preparing the tea, and he was leaning back in an easy chair, +smoking cigarettes and looking through the blue clouds at her +housewifely ways. There was a rosy sheen on her cheeks and something +like the promise of happiness glittering in her eyes. + +He felt so happy and yet so oppressed that he wanted to jump up and +clasp her in his arms simply to lift the burden from his soul. + +She spoke little. She seemed occupied with her own thoughts, and he +with his. + +At about eleven o'clock there was a noise on the street, and the red +glow of smoking torches came through the window. It was a procession of +masqueraders got up by a private society, a foretaste of the public +carnival to follow. + +She opened the French window and they went out on the balcony, on which +potted pomegranate-trees were in full bloom. It was a soft warm night, +like our own nights in spring. The stars were sparkling, and a vague +shimmer lay upon the ocean. + +As the giddy throng flowed past below them whistling and hooting and +laughing, he felt her arm laid on his almost anxiously. + +"Aren't we standing here as on an isolated rock in mid-ocean?" he +whispered. + +She nodded and pressed herself against him softly. + +"And yet have to remain strangers," he went on. + +She made no reply, and lowered her head to dip it into the mass of +blossoms. He felt the quivering of her body. + +"Hedwig," he said softly. + +She shrank. It was the first time he had ever called her by her first +name. + +"Hedwig." + +"What is it?" + +"Hedwig, my heart's so full. I must thank you. I must tell you loving +things. What would I be without you? Whatever I am I owe to you. +Hedwig, I can't bear any longer to be standing beside you so stiff and +so cold while my heart is throbbing. I must get some air--I must tell +you----" + +"Oh, God!" she breathed, clapping her hands to her face and rushing +back into the room, where she dropped down on a settee. + +He followed her and caught both her hands. + +She was panting. + +"Let us talk sensibly," she said, making an effort to sit up erect. +"Sit down--there--and listen to me." He obeyed mechanically. "Why can't +things stay the same as they always have been between us? Wasn't it +lovely? Didn't we use to enjoy each other? And now suddenly something +has seethed up in us that makes us ungrateful for all the happiness we +had. We mustn't give in. It would plunge us--me, at least--into +unhappiness. You see, a few days ago you told me I was your one and +only one. I feel that in a certain sense I really am, and that makes me +proud and happy. But the moment we want to reap love where we sowed +friendship, the magic departs that held us in its spell for so long. +Until then I shall have been your one and only one. Afterward I shall +be--one more." + +He started. + +"What an ugly notion!" he said dully. + +"Ugly, perhaps, but all the truer," she replied, plucking at +the tablecloth with palsied fingers. "We must not surrender to +self-deception. This moment determines our future. It lies within our +power to decide which way we shall go. You know that--I--love +you--and that--I am lonely. So have pity on me. Spare me suffering. I +should like to mean as much in your life as I always have." + +"You are to mean _more_ in my life, not less!" he cried, putting his +hands to his forehead. "I want to devote myself to you altogether, with +all my body, all my soul, and all my art. I want to have peace--peace +from the world without and peace from the passions within. And where +could I be surer of finding peace than with you?" + +She drew a deep sigh, as if in awakening hope, and her gaze hung on his +ardently. + +At that instant the hands of the clock were close on twelve. + +"A few moments," he said, "and the year will be over--a new one will be +coming. Shall it forever remain the same for me, always doing futile +empty things? And shall it always remain the same for you, always +living in sadness and loneliness? Ahead of us is darkness, and, +crouching in the darkness like a hungry beast, is the grave." + +She shuddered. + +"Soon it will have us in its clutches at any rate. Why should we doubt +and hesitate? It's all the same whatever we do. In the background +stands Nothing. So let us be happy as long as there is still +intoxication in life." + +The clock struck twelve. + +Each stroke was like the flapping of wings of some lonely straying +soul. + +With a sob she fell on his breast. + + + * * * * * + + +At the same time a year later Hedwig was sitting in the same room--but +alone. He had meant to be there by Christmas, but then had postponed +his coming until New Year, and by New Year's eve he had not yet +arrived. Instead a letter had come. She had been reading it over and +over again for hours. + +She had aged greatly and bore the marks of intense suffering. A hard +bitter smile hovered about her lips. Her cheeks were aflame with the +fires of death, while she stared at the phrases in the letter, forced +hollow phrases of tenderness, forced because he was embarrassed. + +She sank down in front of the settee on the same spot on which he had +kneeled a year before, a woman tortured and humbled to death; and +hiding her face in the cushions, she murmured: + +"One more!" + + + * * * * * + + +Dear lady, why are you looking at me so mournfully? What's the story to +us? + +In the first place _I_ am not a genius; secondly, _you_ haven't got the +talent for being deserted, and, thirdly, we shall stay the same good +old friends we've always been even after New Year. + + + + + + THE NEW YEAR'S EVE + CONFESSION + +Ah, dear lady, it's good to be here with you again, sitting so +peacefully in this comfortable chair, ready for a cosy chat. Thank +goodness, the holiday hubbub is over and done with and you have a +little leisure for me again. + +Oh, the Christmas season! I do believe it was invented by the devil +especially for the annoyance of us bachelors, to impress upon us the +dreariness of our homeless lives. The thing that is a source of delight +to others is a torture to us. Of course, of course, we're not all of us +lonely. The joy of bestowing joy blooms for most of us, too. But the +pure pleasure of sharing pleasure with others is embittered partly by a +dose of ironical self-criticism, partly by that acid yearning which I +might call, instead of homesickness, marriage-sickness. + +Why did I not come and pour my heart out to you? you ask, you +sympathetic soul, who bestow consolation as generously as most of your +sex bestow petty spite. Ah, but you see, the matter is not so simple. +Don't you know what Speidel says in his charmingly chatty "Lonely +Sparrows," which you, correctly divining the state of my soul, sent me +on the third day of the holiday? He says, "The genuine bachelor does +not want to be consoled. Once having become unhappy, he wants to +indulge his unhappiness." + +Beside Speidel's lonely sparrow, there is also a species of confirmed +old bachelors, family friends. I do not mean those professional +destroyers of the family who insinuate themselves hypocritically with +evil intent while making themselves comfortable at the hospitable +hearth. I mean the good old uncle, papa's whilom schoolmate, who +dandles baby on his knees while respectably reading aloud to mamma the +story in the evening paper with omission of the indecent passages. + +I know men whose whole life goes in the service of a family with which +they have become friendly, men who pass their days without desire +beside a lovely woman whom they secretly adore. + +You are sceptical? Oh, it is the "without desire" that you object to? +You may be right. In the depths of even the tamest heart there probably +lurks a wild desire, but a desire--it is understood--that is held in +check. + +I should like to give you an example and tell you of a conversation +that two ancient gentlemen had with each other this very New Year's +eve. You must not ask me how I found out about the conversation, and +you must not tell it to any one else. May I begin? + +Picture, as the scene, a high-ceilinged room furnished in an +old-fashioned style and dimly lighted by a green-shaded, brightly +polished hanging lamp, such as our parents used before the era of +kerosene; the light falling upon a round table covered with a white +cloth and set with the ingredients for mixing a New Year's punch, and +in the centre a few drippings of oil spreading slowly. + +My two ancient gentlemen sat half in the dimness cast by the green +shade. Mouldy ruins they were of a time long past, each tremulously +sunk in himself and each staring into space with the dim eyes and the +dull look of old age. The one, the host, was a military man, as was +clear at first glance from his closefitting stock, his pointed +moustache, shaved off under the points, and his eyebrows knitted +in a martial frown. He sat huddled in a rolling chair and clutched +the handle of the steering rod with both hands like a crooked +walking-stick. Nothing about him stirred except his lower jaw, which +went up and down incessantly with a chewing movement. The other, who +was sitting beside him on the sofa, was tall and thin, with narrow +shoulders and the head of a thinker, angular and broad of brow. He drew +skimpy clouds of smoke from a long pipe that was about to go out. Snowy +white curls framed his face, and in the thousand fine lines of his +smooth, dried-up skin nestled a soft, quiet smile, such as nothing but +the peace of renunciation can impress upon an aged countenance. + +They sat without talking. In the silence you could hear the slight +bubbling of the burning oil mingled with the slight bubbling of the +tobacco juice. Then the clock on the wall in the dark background +wheezed and struck eleven. + +"This is about the time you usually brew the punch," said the man with +the thinker's head. His voice sounded soft and quavered a little. + +"Yes, this is the time," the other rejoined. His tone was harsh, as if +again resounding with the strident shouts of command. + +"I should never have thought," the guest continued, "that it would be +so sad without her." + +The host nodded and chewed on. + +"She made the New Year's punch for us forty-four times." + +"Yes," the old soldier put in, "ever since I have been living here in +Berlin and you have been coming to see us." + +"Last year at this time," the guest continued, "we three were still +together, so happily. She sat there in the easy chair, knitting socks +for Paul's oldest child, and hurrying as fast as she could. They had to +be finished by twelve o'clock, she said. And they were. Then we drank +the punch and very comfortably discussed death. And two months later +she actually was carried out to the cemetery. You know I wrote a thick +volume on the immortality of the idea. You never could bear it. I +cannot bear it any more either since your wife died. As a matter of +fact, I don't give a fig for any philosophic ideas any more." + +"Yes, she was a good woman," said the husband of the deceased. "She +took good care of me. When I had to be out for service by five o'clock +in the morning, she was always up ahead of me and saw to it that I had +a good cup of coffee before I left. To be sure, she had her faults, +too. When once she got to philosophising with you--whew!" + +"You simply never understood her," murmured the guest, something like +restrained resentment quivering about the corners of his mouth, though +the look he allowed to rest on his friend a long time was mild and sad, +as though his soul carried the secret consciousness of guilt. + +After a period of silence, he began: + +"Listen, Franz, I must tell you something--something that has been +gnawing at me a long while. I cannot possibly go down into the grave +carrying it along with me." + +"Fire away, then," said Franz, and picked up the long pipe leaning +against his rolling chair. + +"Once something--happened between--me and your wife." + +"Please don't joke, Doc," said Franz. + +"I'm in grim earnest, Franz. I have been carrying it round with me for +more than forty years, and now the time has come at last to make a +clean breast of it." + +"Do you mean to say my wife deceived me?" the old soldier shouted in a +rage. + +"Shame on you, Franz," said the philosopher, with his sad, mild smile. + +Franz mumbled and muttered a little and then lighted his pipe. + +"No, she was pure as an angel," the philosopher went on. "You and I are +the criminals. Listen to me. It was forty-three years ago. You had just +been ordered to Berlin as a captain, and I was teaching at the +University. You know what a wild fellow you were then." + +"Hm," said Franz, and raised his shaking hand to twist the points of +his moustache. + +"There was a beautiful actress with big black eyes and small white +teeth. Do you remember?" + +"Do I remember! Bianca was her name." A feeble smile flitted across the +old man's weatherbeaten countenance with the marks on it of hard and +fast living. "She could bite, I tell you, she could bite!" + +"You deceived your wife, and she suspected it. But she never said +anything, and suffered in silence. You did not notice it, but I did. +She was the first woman I got to know after my mother's death. She came +into my life like a shining star, and I looked up to her as to a +shining star. Finally I summoned up the courage to ask her what was +troubling her. She smiled and said she was not feeling quite well yet. +You remember, it was only a short while before that Paul had been born. +Then came New Year's eve--exactly forty-three years ago this very +night. I came to your house at about eight o'clock, as usual. She sat +embroidering, and I read to her while we waited for you. The hours +passed, one by one. You did not come. I saw how uneasy she became and +how she began to tremble, and I trembled with her. I knew what was +keeping you, and I was afraid that you would forget twelve o'clock in +that woman's arms. It was getting very near the hour. She stopped +embroidering, and I stopped reading, and an awful silence descended on +us. I saw a tear creep out slowly from between her lashes and fall down +on her embroidery. I jumped up and wanted to go out and bring you home. +I felt capable of tearing you by force from that woman's side. But at +the same instant your wife jumped up, too, from this very seat I am +sitting on. + +"'Where are you going?' she cried. There was unspeakable dread in her +face. + +"'I am going to get Franz,' I said. + +"At that she fairly screamed. + +"'For goodness sake, stay with me. At least _you_ stay with me. Don't +_you_ leave me.' + +"And she threw herself on me and laid her hands on my shoulders and hid +her wet face on my chest. My whole body quivered. Never before had a +woman been so close to me. But I held on to myself and spoke to her +comfortingly. She so needed comforting. Soon after, you came back. You +did not notice my confusion. Your cheeks were flushed and there was a +love-drunken weariness in your eyes. + +"That New Year's eve produced a change in me, which filled me with +alarm. Since I had felt her soft arms around my neck and had drawn in +the perfume of her hair, the star had fallen from heaven, and instead +of the star it was the _woman_, the woman, beautiful, and breathing +love. I knew there was ardour in my glances, and I denounced myself as +a blackguard, a deceiver, and to make at least partial atonement to my +conscience, I went to work to separate you from your mistress. +Fortunately I had some money, which I had inherited, and she was +satisfied with the sum I offered her, and----" + +"By Jingo," the old soldier interjected, "so you're the one to blame +for Bianca's writing me that touching good-bye letter in which she told +me it was with a breaking heart that she had to forego my love?" + +"Yes, I am the one to blame for it. But listen. I had expected to +purchase peace with the money I gave her. I was mistaken. The wild +thoughts kept going round and round in my brain worse and worse. I +buried myself in my work. It was just then that I conceived the central +thought for my 'Immortality of the Idea.' No use. Peace did not come +that way. + +"And so a whole year went by, and another New Year's eve arrived. I was +sitting beside her on this seat once again. This time you were at home, +but you were lying asleep on the sofa in the next room, tired out by a +jollification at the club. Sitting there, close beside her, looking at +her pale face, the recollection of the New Year's eve before came back +and overwhelmed me irresistibly. Just to feel her head at my neck once +again, just to kiss her once again, and then let come what may! Our +glances met for an instant. It seemed to me that a secret understanding +flashed into her eyes. I could not control myself any longer. I dropped +at her feet and hid my burning face in her lap. + +"I lay there like that, motionless, for possibly two seconds, when I +felt her hand cool on my head and heard her say softly and gently: + +"'You must be good.' + +"Yes, I must be good. I must not deceive the man sleeping in the next +room so trustfully. I jumped up and looked about, disconcerted. She +picked up a book from the table and handed it to me. I knew what she +meant and opened the book at random and started to read aloud. I do not +know what I read. The letters danced before my eyes. But gradually the +storm in my soul subsided, and when it struck twelve and you, with a +sleepy look in your eyes, came in to wish us a Happy New Year, I felt +as though that instant of sin lay far, far behind me, in an era long +past. + +"From that time on I became calmer. I knew she did not return my love +and I had nothing to hope for from her but compassion. The years went +by. Your children grew up and married. We three grew old. You gave up +sowing wild oats and lived for only the one woman, like myself. I did +not stop loving her. No, that was impossible. But my love took on other +forms. It discarded earthly desires and turned into a spiritual +communion. You often used to laugh when you heard us philosophising. +But had you divined how my soul became one with hers, it would have +made you very jealous. And now she's dead. Perhaps by next New Year's +eve we shall have followed her. That is why it is high time for me to +unburden myself of my secret and say to you, 'Franz, I once did you a +wrong. Forgive me!'" + +He held out his hand to his friend pleadingly, but Franz answered +testily: + +"Bah, stuff and nonsense! A lot to forgive! This news of yours, this +confession, is stale. I've known it for ages. She herself told me all +about it forty years ago. And now I'll tell you the reason I ran after +women the way I did until I was an old man--because, when she told me, +she also said that you were the only man she had ever loved." + +His guest stared at him in silence. The clock on the wall wheezed and +struck twelve o'clock. + + + + + + THE GOOSE HERD + + +My dear man, I've been listening to you now for a long while and you +fill me with astonishment. You usually show--more than I do myself--an +honest wish to take things as they are. Then whence all of a sudden, in +making these nice observations of human emotions, do you draw this +idealistic illusion of yours? + +It seems to me your levelling-down democratic sentiment has been +playing you a naughty trick again. You maintain, if I understand you +correctly, that there is not a profound difference in the way the +various social classes feel and express their feelings; while, as a +matter of fact, life proves the very reverse every day. Oh, it would be +beautiful as a dream if you were right. The ideals of brotherhood and +equality that I, the bred-in-the-bone aristocrat--that is what you say +I am--must necessarily consider mere figments of the brain, would then +be reality, or, rather, have already become reality; because the bit of +knowledge more or less cannot possibly produce an organic difference in +men's natures. + +No, no, dear sir, it is the cleavage in the way they feel, more than +all differences in wealth, rank, and learning, that separates the upper +from the lower classes; so much so that they go through the world +together each without comprehension of what the other does, like +citizens of different globes. Woe to him who hopes to leap the gap! + +You don't believe me? You shake your head? Oh, my dear man, I am +speaking from experience. Alas, alas! If I could tell you--but why +shouldn't I? Night is falling outside, the November storm is howling, +and to-day I celebrated the advent of my thirtieth grey hair--quite the +atmosphere for conjuring up a picture of light, spring and youth. + +Let me close my eyes, and you listen to me like a good little boy. I +want to tell you of my first love. Do you know who my first love was? A +goose-herd, a real, out-and-out gooseherd. I am not joking. I have wept +bitter tears over the wrong he did me, and that when I had long been a +grown-up, highly respectable young lady. + +To be sure, when he first set my heart afire, I was still of the age +when my highest ideal of happiness was to go barefoot. I was eight +years old, he ten. I was the daughter of the lord of the castle, he, +the son of our smith. + +Mornings, when I took breakfast on the verandah with my mother and big +brother, he used to pass by with his geese and disappear in the +direction of the pasture. At first he stared up at us with naive +astonishment, it never occurring to him to raise his cap. Then my +brother impressed it upon him that it was proper to give the family a +decent greeting, and from that time on he always called up a "Good +mornin' to you" like a lesson learned by heart and with a long sweep of +his cap. + +If my brother happened to be in a good humour, I received permission to +take a roll down to him, and he always snatched it out of my hand with +a certain greedy anxiety, as if there were danger of my withdrawing it +at the last moment. + +What did he look like? I can still see him as if he were right there in +front of me. His straight flaxen hair hung down over his sunburned +cheeks like a thatched roof, with his blue eyes peering from +underneath, jolly and cunning. He wore his ragged trousers rolled up +over his knees, and always carried an osier switch, into which, along +the green bark, he had cleverly cut white spirals. + +It was upon this switch that my childish covetousness first fastened +itself. How fascinating to hold in my hand a marvellous piece of work +like that, so different from all my toys! And when I pictured to myself +being allowed to chase geese with it and to go barefoot, the pinnacle +of earthly happiness had been reached. + +And it was this same switch that brought us into human contact. One +morning at breakfast, as I saw him going by so cheerily, I could no +longer restrain my desire. I furtively put together the pieces of the +roll spread with honey that I was eating and asked hurriedly to be +excused, and ran after him. + +When he saw me coming, he stopped and looked at me wonderingly. But as +soon as he caught sight of the roll in my hand, a gleam of +comprehension shot into his eyes. + +"Will you give me your switch?" I asked. + +"Why?" he asked back, and put one foot up to rub the calf of his other +leg. + +"Because I want it," I said defiantly, then added more gently, "I'll +give you my roll spread with honey for it." + +He let his eyes rest longingly on the piece of deliciousness, and then +finally observed. "No, I have to have it for the geese, but I'll cut +another one like it for you." + +"Can you do that?" + +I was all astonishment. + +"Oh, that's nothing," he pooh-poohed. "I can make flutes, too, and +jumping jacks." + +I was so completely carried off my feet that I handed him the roll on +the spot. He bit into it with gusto, and, not honouring me with another +glance, he drove his feathered flock off before him. + +I looked after him, envy in my heart. _He_ was allowed to shepherd +geese, but _I_ had to go up to Mademoiselle and learn French. Yes, I +thought, how unequal fortune's favours are. + +That evening he brought me the switch he had promised to make. It was +even more beautiful than I had dared to hope in my wildest dreams. +There were the white spirals that had so fascinated me in the original, +and more than that, the butt-end was topped with a knob, on which a +human countenance--whether mine or his, I could not unriddle--was +depicted by two dots and two dashes at right angles. + +From that time on we were friends. I shared with him all the goodies +that fell to me, the spoiled little darling, from every side. In +return, he bestowed upon me the artistic products of his skilful +fingers, reed pipes, little boxes, houses, toy utensils, and, best of +all, his famous jumping jacks. + +Our meetings took place every evening behind the goose coops, and there +we exchanged gifts. I looked forward the whole day to these meetings, +my thoughts constantly engaged by my young hero. I saw him on the sunny +pasture lying in the grass, blowing his reed pipes, while I was +torturing myself with horrid vowels. And the yearning grew ever +stronger within me to partake of that bliss which is called minding +geese. + +When I told him of my feelings, he burst out laughing. + +"Why don't you come along, then?" he said. + +That tipped the scales, and without a second's reflection, "All right," +I said, "I'll go along to-morrow." + +"Don't forget to bring something to eat along," my friend forewarned +me. + +Luck was with me. Mademoiselle's headache came at the very opportune +moment, and the French lesson was dispensed with. Feverish with joy and +excitement, I sat at the breakfast table waiting for him to go by. My +pockets were stuffed with goodies of all sorts, which I had wheedled +out of Mademoiselle, and beside me lay the switch, which I looked +forward to swinging that day in the strict fulfilment of my duty. + +Ah, there he was coming. His blue eyes glanced up at me slily as he +bellowed his "Good mornin' to you" at us; and the instant I could slip +away without attracting attention I was off after him. + +"What have you brought along?" was his first question. + +"Two little ginger cakes, three cervelat sandwiches, a roll cut in two +with sardelles between, and a piece of gooseberry pie," said I, +spreading out my glories. + +He fell upon them at once, while I with carefully concealed glee +proudly drove the geese along. + +After passing through the fir woods, the first part of which was +somewhat familiar to me from my previous walks, we came to regions less +and less well known. Stunted undergrowth rose on each side of the way, +making an uncanny thicket, and then, all of a sudden, the broad, +boundless heath opened up to my vision. + +Oh, how lovely it was, how lovely! As far as the eye reached, a sea of +grass and gaily coloured flowers. Molehills covered with turf stretched +away in long rows like motionless waves. The hot air quivered, fairly +dancing on the breezy heath, while the buzzing of the bees made the +accompaniment. And high up in the deep blue heavens stood the golden +sun. + +At the edge of the woods was a marsh with gleaming puddles of greyish +yellow, thickish water. The refuse of the geese floated on the surface, +and roundabout on the ground--so moist that great bubbles gushed up +between the clumps of grass--were thousands of fine tracks of the +geese's feet, making the whole spot look like a patterned rug. + +This was the flock's paradise. Here we made halt, and while the geese +settled themselves comfortably in the puddles, we chased about on the +heath, shouting and laughing, caught yellow butterflies, and picked +blueberries. + +Then we played husband and wife. Elsie, the tamest of the geese, was +our child. We kissed and whipped the poor creature almost to death, but +it finally succeeded, after prodigious efforts, in making its escape +from our clutches. Next, I prepared the meals for my husband. I untied +my white apron, spread it on the ground for a tablecloth, and placed on +it the remnants of the food I had brought along. He sat down to the +repast pompously, and when I saw the rapidity with which he finished up +one bit after the other, I nearly jumped out of our little home for +joy. + +The hours passed as in a dream. Higher and higher rose the sun, until +its rays came burning down on us perpendicularly. My head began to +spin, and a dull lassitude came over me. Also, I experienced +considerable hunger, but my spouse had already consumed everything. The +inside of my mouth was dry, my lips were feverish. To cool them, I held +moist blades of grass against them. + +Suddenly, from beyond the woods, from way far away, came the ringing of +a bell. I knew what it meant. It was the summons to the midday meal, +which called me to table, too. And if they missed me! Oh, God, what +would become of me? + +I threw myself on the grass and began to cry bitterly, while my +companion, meaning to comfort me, passed his rough hands over my face +and neck. + +Suddenly I jumped up and made a dash for the woods, as though pursued +by the furies. It must have been about two hours that I strayed about +in the undergrowth crying. Then I caught the sound of voices calling my +name, and a few moments later I was in my brother's arms. + +The next morning my poor friend appeared in the part of abductor and +seducer before the high criminal court of the lord of the manor. He +seemed to take it for granted that he was to be the scapegoat and was +in for a flogging, and he made not the slightest attempt to shift part +of the blame from himself. He accepted the chastisement my brother +inflicted upon him with the greatest calm. Then he rubbed his aching +back against a porch column, smiling dolefully, and, after that, +hastily made off, while I, sobbing aloud, rolled on the floor. + +From that day on I loved him. I plotted a thousand wiles and schemes +for meeting him secretly. I nabbed edibles like a magpie, so that he +might regale himself with the fruits of my pilferings. I fairly +oppressed him with the profusion of fond attentions, with which I tried +to wipe out of existence those frightful blows of my brother's whip. + +He accepted my love calmly and rewarded me for it by a devotion that +was moving and an appetite that was sound. + +Fate separated us six months later. + +My mother had been ailing for some time, and the physician now +recommended her living in the south. She put the estate entirely in my +brother's charge and moved to the Riviera, taking me along. + + + * * * * * + + +Nine years were to elapse before I came back home. The return was +sadder than ever I should have dreamed. In Berlin, where I had lived +after my mother's death, a tricky nervous trouble had taken hold of me +and kept me confined to bed for many weeks. The doctors wrestled with +death and saved my life, but the blooming young girl had become a pale +weak shadow. My physician recommended the country and pine-needle +baths, and so I was bundled on to the train and transported to my +brother's estate. + +I must have presented a pretty pitiful spectacle, because when I +reached the house and was lifted out of the carriage, I saw tears in +the old domestics' eyes. + +It is a peculiar feeling to know you are back home again after long +wanderings, especially if you have gone through as much trouble as I +had. A rare softness takes hold of you, and you try to blot out forever +the joy and the suffering imposed by an alien world. You try to be a +child again and conjure up long lost magic out of the grave. + +As I leaned back in my reclining chair and let my tired eyes roam +over the familiar fields, one shade after another came alive +again, and the first one in the motley throng was--my dear, +flaxen--haired goose-herd. + +"What has become of him?" I asked my brother, and was rejoiced by the +good news that he had grown up into a fine, good-looking young man and +could already fully take the place of his father, the smith. + +I felt my heart throbbing. I tried to scold myself for my folly, but +with poor success. The dear old memories were not to be dismissed, and +finally I yielded myself up to them unrestrainedly and pictured the +manner of our seeing each other again in all the glowing colours of +fairy tale romance. + +A few days after my arrival I was allowed to take my first drive. I was +lifted into a carriage, driven to the woods, and then set down on a +soft, mossy, peaceful little spot, which I had selected deliberately. +From it you could see the smithy in which the companion of my childhood +dwelt. + +My brother wanted to stay with me, but I begged him not to let me keep +him from his work, and assured him that the little girl sent along to +wait on me was quite enough protection. Besides, what was there to be +afraid of in these peaceful home woods? So, the coachman drove my +brother back to his office on the estate, and they were to call for me +again in two hours. Then I dismissed the little girl, too, telling her +to go hunt strawberries but to stay nearby. She ran off happily. + +I was alone at last! Now I could dream to my heart's content. The fir +trees rustled overhead, and from the smithy came the dull blows of the +hammer. Brightly glowed the fire in the forge, and every now and then a +dark figure glided in front of it. That must be he. + +I did not tire following the movements of his arms. I admired his +strength and trembled for him when the sparks flew about his body. + +The two hours went by unnoticed, and in the midst of my dreamy +meditations I was surprised by my brother coming to call for me. + +"Well, did it seem a long time?" my brother asked gaily. + +I shook my head, smiling, and tried to get up, but sank back wearily. + +"Hm, hm," said my brother, reflecting. "I didn't bring the coachman +back, thinking I could carry you to the carriage by myself, but the +seat is high, and I couldn't get you up without hurting you. See here, +Grete,"--he turned to my little companion, who had come running at the +sound of the carriage--"you go run down to the smith, the young one, +you know, and tell him he should come and help me here." + +He tossed a penny on the ground and the little maid, radiant with +delight, picked it up before going for the smith. + +I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. I was to see him again, here, on +this spot. He was to act the Samaritan to me. I sat there waiting, my +hand pressed to my pounding heart, until--until---- + +There he was coming! Yes, that was he! How strong, how handsome he had +grown to be! Heavy flaxen hair about his smoke-blackened face, and a +thick growth of light down around his powerful chin. Young Siegfried +must have looked like that while serving his apprenticeship with the +wicked Mime. + +He clutched awkwardly at his little cap, tipped back on his neck so +jauntily, while I held out my hand smiling and said, "How do you do?" + +"Very well," he replied with an embarrassed laugh, and carefully wiped +his grimy fingers on his leather apron before taking my hand. + +"Help me lift the lady into the carriage," said my brother. + +He wiped his hands again, and caught hold of me--none too gently--under +the armpits, and the two of them, my brother taking me by my feet, +lifted me up on to the carriage cushions. + +"Thanks, thanks," I said and gave him a smile. + +He stood at the carriage door, shyly twisting his cap and looking from +one to the other of us uncertainly. + +"He still has something on his heart," I said to myself. "Why not? At +the sight of me old memories have been awakened. He wants to talk to me +of the blissful days when in childish innocence we watched the geese +together. Ah, he doesn't trust himself--his lord's presence--I ought to +come to his assistance a little." + +"Well," I said, giving him a friendly, encouraging look straight in his +eyes, "what are you thinking of?" + +My brother at this turned from his horses, with which he had been busy, +and said, thrusting his hand into his pocket: + +"Oh, you're waiting for your tip." + +I felt as though some one had struck me in the face. + +"For goodness' sake, Max," I stammered, my blood going hot and cold. + +But my brother did not hear me and handed him--actually dared to--a +dime. + +I was already seeing my childhood friend dashing the coin back in my +brother's face. I exerted all my strength to raise myself and stretch +my hands out so as to prevent violence--but what was that? No, +impossible! And yet I saw it with my own eyes. He took the money--he +said, "Thank you"--he bowed--he walked away! + +And I? I stared after him as though he were an evil spirit, then sank +back on the cushions with a weary sigh. + +That, my dear friend, was the way I said good-bye to my youthful dream. + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Iolanthe's Wedding, by Hermann Sudermann + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IOLANTHE'S WEDDING *** + +***** This file should be named 34358.txt or 34358.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/3/5/34358/ + +Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by Google Books + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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